EXTEMPORANEOUS 
SPEAKING 



PEARSON AND HICKS 



\ 




ClassJPNKlM 
Book.- - 



GopightN". 



CPPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Extemporaneous 
Speaking 



BY 
PAUL M. PEARSON 

PROFESSOR PUBLIC SPEAKING, SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 

AND PHILIP M. HICKS 

ASSISTANT IN PUBLIC SPEAKING, SWARTHMORE COLLEGE 



HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE 
31-33-35 West 15th St. ^ New York City 






u^ 



Copyright, 1912, by Hinds, Noble & Eldredge 



£CI.A327410 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 5 

PART I 

CHAPTER 

I. Efficient Speaking ii 

II. Preparing the Speech 17 

III. The Introduction 23 

IV. The Conclusion 32 

V. The Discussion yj 

VI. Personality 43 

VII. After-Dinner Speaking 47 

VIII. Speaking in Business 53 

PART II 

SPEECHES FOR STUDY 

The Ethics of Corporate Management. .Charles W. Eliot 59 

The Principles of Business Success Hugh Chalmers 75 

The Unknown Quantities M. T. Frisbie 81 

Comparative Advertising Methods, East and West, 

Hugh A. O'Donnell 93 

Vanadium Steels Louis Bradford 103 

The Necessity for Adequate Railway Revenues, 

Martin A, Knapp 107 
Hours of Service of Railway Employees, 

Robert M. La Follette iii 

3 



4 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Railway Rate Bill Robert M. La Follette 117 

Alaska: The Nation's Storehouse .Robert M. La Follette 129 

On Withdrawing from the Union Jefferson Davis 139 

Paul Before Agrippa 143 

Paul at Mars' Hill 147 

Nathan's Parable of the Ewe Lamb 149 

Tertullus' Speech Against Paul 151 

Paul's Reply to Tertullus 153 

Julia Ward Howe Charles W. Eliot 155 

The Death of Lincoln James A. Garfield 161 

The Bible and Progress Woodrow Wilson 163 

International Conciliation Nicholas Murray Butler 179 

Future in Chemistry Wilder D. Bancroft 187 

The University is a Democracy. A'' zV/zo/o^ Murray Butler 193 

Inaugural Address George E. Vincent 197 

The Delays and Defects in the Enforcement of Law in 

this Country William Floward Taft 211 

The Indeterminate Sentence, the Parole, and the New 

Criminology Frederick Howard Wines 219 

The Honor System Jesse H. Holmes 225 

Jackson-Day Dinner Woodrow Wilson 227 

The Issues of Reform Woodrow Wilson 241 

After-Dinner Speech Strickland W. Gillilan 251 

Appendix I, Synopsis 255 

Appendix L", Topics for Speech 257 

Appendix HI, Extempore Speaking in High Schools 263 

Notes on Programs 265 



PREFACE 



FOE TEACHERS 



Extemporaneous Speaking. — "Greater efficiency" 
has become the watchword of modern activity, and 
education in its various departments is shaping to 
that end. Courses in business management have 
made their way into the curriculum. The depart- 
ments of economics, politics, and engineering being 
the quickest to respond to the popular trend toward 
practical rather than theoretical teaching, have 
reaped the greatest increase in enrollment. Extem- 
poraneous Speaking has been the answer of the 
Public Speaking Department to this demand, and 
the results obtained have been successful both from 
the standpoint of the classroom and the interested 
co-operation of the other college departments. 

As ofifered at Swarthmore, where it supplements 
already established courses in Declamation, Oratory 
and Argumentation, the aim of the course has been 
to enable men to talk shop effectively: that is, to 
equip the college student with the capacity for 
leadership that comes with the ability to impress 
one's personality on other people by means of the 
spoken word. In all professions the thing that lifts 
an individual above his fellows is usually facility in 
self-expression. Leadership is the reward of the 
man who possesses the power of effective speech. 

5 



6 PREFACE 

Plan of Course. — The object of the course being 

to train the student to talk effectively upon what- 
ever touches him most nearly, two means to this 
end suggest themselves. First, to give the student 
a working knowledge of the structure and qualities 
of a successful speech. Second, to include in the 
course a maximum amount of practice. In other 
words, a laboratory course, not a lecture course. 

Small Sections. — In pursuance of these aims it has 
been found necessary to divide the class into small 
sections of not more than ten students each. These 
sections meet one hour a week, when each student 
delivers a five-minute speech. Two or three longer 
speeches are also required during the semester. 

Topics for Speeches. — Students are allowed the 
greatest possible freedom in selecting topics for 
speeches on condition that the subject be submitted 
for approval a week in advance of the delivery of 
the speech. A list of topics submitted by the heads 
of other college departments (see Appendix 2) is 
posted in the classroom, and students are encour- 
aged to draw upon this source. College politics, 
athletics, student activities, and the various prob- 
lems arising in connection with undergraduate life 
are frequently chosen, as are political, social, and 
scientific questions of current interest. 

Whenever possible, engineering students are 
given separate sections, owing to the preponderance 
of technical subjects, which are of little interest to 
the other students. 



PREFACE 7 

Teaching Method. — It will be seen that there is 
comparatively little time allotted for actual instruc- 
tion as such. The most satisfactory plan has been 
to reduce this phase of the course to the minimum 
required for a clear understanding of the principles 
of efficient speaking, and to rely upon the instructor's 
criticism of students' speeches to point out their 
successful employment. The criticism aims to be 
always constructive rather than destructive, to em- 
phasize the merits of the speeches submitted rather 
than their shortcomings. A very definite advantage 
of the small section is that the instructor, by closer 
contact with the students, is able to know what 
variety and amount of criticism will produce the 
best results in individual cases. Too much may 
produce embarrassment, which is inimical to the 
best results. 

At the close of each speech, wherever time per- 
mits, the class is encouraged to question the speaker 
upon any points of the speech, or to challenge his 
statements. The speaker is then allowed a few 
moments in rebuttal. 

The subject matter which forms the basis of the 
instruction in this course will be found in Part I 
of this book and, briefly stated, treats of (I) Prepa- 
ration of the speech, (II) Qualities of a successful 
speech, (III) Personality of the speaker, with addi- 
tional chapters on the speech in business, and on 
after-dinner speaking. 

No attempt is made in this course to develop an 
oratorical style or delivery. An easy, natural and 



8 PREFACE 

dignified delivery is commended ; spontaneous ges- 
tures are encouraged ; offensive mannerisms and 
striving for effect are deprecated. 

Holding the Interest. — As in other laboratory 
courses, the best results can be obtained only when 
the students evince an active interest in the work. 
One of the problems of the instructor is to keep 
alive the interest, which is very general at the begin- 
ning of the course. The meeting week after week 
of the same small group of students to listen to the 
same familiar voices does not tend either to inspire 
the speaker or enthuse the listeners. This inevitable 
monotony should be counteracted by varying the 
program as much as possible. The routine of five- 
minute speeches may be broken by an informal 
debate, a round of toasts, a symposium upon some 
college topic, or a session devoted to salesmanship. 
Local conditions and knowledge of the class will 
suggest to the instructor other means of holding 
the interest, and he should be quick to seize upon 
every latent enthusiasm, to direct it to this end. 
Often a judicious assignment of topics may prove 
advantageous. 

Object of this Book. — The material contained in 
Part I of this book embodies the teaching experi- 
ence of the editors. The topics, the principles and 
the hints to students of public speaking are those 
which they have found useful in the classroom, and 
the raison d'etre of the book is the need they have 
felt for a working text for the course in Extempo- 



PREFACE 9 

raneous Speaking, and the hope that it might prove 
useful to teachers working along similar lines. 

Acknowledgment is made of the many valuable 
suggestions derived from the following works : 
The Speech for Special Occasions, Knapp and 

French. 
Effective Speaking, Arthur E. Phillips. 
How to Attract and Hold an Audience, J. Berg 

Esenwein. 
Psychology of Public Speaking, Walter Dill 
Scott. 

The editors also desire to express their apprecia- 
tion of the courtesy of the gentlemen who have per- 
mitted the use of their speeches in Part II. The 
speeches chosen have been, as far as, possible, those 
of living men who are recognized as among the 
foremost thinkers and speakers of the present time, 
and it is hoped that they may prove valuable in 
stimulating classroom discussion, as well as in 
exemplifying the qualities of efficient public speak- 
ing. 

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 1912. 



Extemporaneous Speaking 



PART I 



Chapter I 

EFFICIENT SPEAKING 

Importance of the Subject. — Because speech is a 
natural gift, because we employ it freely according 
to our needs or inclinations, and because the aver- 
age person succeeds in conducting his affairs with- 
out giving any special attention to the subject, we 
are apt to lose sight of the opportunities for busi- 
ness success, for exerting influence, for leadership, 
which are offered to the man who has mastered the 
principles of efficient speaking. The term efficient 
speaking is in itself significant of the changing sen- 
timent toward one of the oldest and most honorable 
of the arts, the art of public speech. In the forum 
and on the stage, the power of the spoken word has 
always been acknowledged, but only within recent 
years has there been a general recognition of the 
importance of effective speaking ability, both as a 
business asset and as a means of added usefulness 

II 



12 EXTEMPORANEOUS S'FEAKING 

and power in every walk of life. This recognition 
is a part of the widespread striving for greater effi- 
ciency in all human activities, and the term efficient 
speaking is significant of this new and highly prac- 
tical interest in public speaking, as contrasted with 
the older view, which identified it only with elocu- 
tion and oratory. 

To those whose profession demands constant em- 
ployment of speech — the lawyer, the preacher, the 
teacher — the importance of ability in speaking 
should be apparent; yet how often does the plea 
fail, the sermon bore, or the lecture pall because 
the speaker cannot present effectively the matter 
which may have cost him the most painstaking 
effort! But to the non-professional speaker — the 
engineer, the farmer, the business man or woman — 
efifective speaking ability is equally, if not so ob- 
viously, important. Distinction in any vocation can 
only come to the man who knows hovv^ to make his 
knowledge intelligible to others, and we frequently 
see the most thoughtful men yielding leadership to 
inferior men who can out-talk them. 

The Press and Speaking. — The development of 
printing is partly responsible for the apparent 
decline of interest in the art of speech, yet at a 
second glance the press is revealed as a medium for 
the extension of the spoken word. We are not de- 
pendent upon the spoken word for information or 
for arguments ; but for inspiration, nothing can take 
the place of it. A distinguished man speaks to a 
thousand persons upon some topic of public con- 



EFFICIENT SPEAKING 13 

cerii, and the next morning his words are read by 
millions throughout the land. 

Press and Pulpit.— What Newell Dwight Hillis 
says of the effect of the press upon the pulpit is 
true of all serious public speech. ''Thoughtful men 
are not troubled lest some agency arise to dis- 
possess the pulpit. In the last analysis preaching 
is simply an extension of that universal function 
called conversation. So far from books doing away 
with the influence of the voice, they seem rather 
to increase it. When a new book is published like 
*The Memories of Tennyson/ or 'Equality/ or 'The 
Christian/ these books, instead of ending conversa- 
tion upon the themes in question seem rather to 
open the flood-gates of speech so that a thousand 
readers break forth with discussion, who before 
were dumb." 

The Platform.— The public platform, the Chau- 
tauqua movement, and the University Extension 
work, all of which are increasing in importance and 
influence, each year offer exceptional opportunities 
to men who have a message for the public and the 
ability to speak it. Williams Jennings Bryan has 
perhaps the largest personal following of any man 
in the United States, which he has built up largely 
from the lecture platform by his spoken appeals to 
the people. 

The Cash Return.— Now turning from the possi- 
bilities of leadership and preferment to the topic 
which more immediately concerns the college grad- 



U EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

uate, it is asked : ''Will training in public speaking 
better enable a man to get a job?" Mr. Allen Davis, 
Professor of Public Speaking in the University of 
Pittsburgh, in an address before the Public Speak- 
ing Conference at Swarthmore College in 1910 of- 
fered this striking testimony in support of the con- 
clusion that it would. He said in part : 

In Business. — ''The director of the High School in 
Pittsburgh, one of the most commercial cities in 
the world, sent out a circular letter to every busi- 
ness firm of consequence in the city, asking those 
firms, what in their opinion, was the most important 
thing we could teach students in order to enable 
them to grapple more successfully with the prob- 
lems that would await them in the business world. 
With a few exceptions, the answers that he got did 
not say, 'Teach them more arithmetic,' or 'Teach 
them more stenography.' In fact, ninety-nine per 
cent of those business firms laid stress upon the 
advantage of being able to write and speak the 
English tongue accurately and forcibly! Let us 
mark this bit of testimony Exhibit 1. 

In Engineering. — "Now for Exhibit 2. The Chan- 
cellor of the University of Pittsburgh recently had 
a meeting with a body of engineers, and asked them 
what they considered to be the most important 
part of a college career. Their answer may seem 
strange to you, but I quote it exactly as it was 
given. 'We presuppose,' said these gentlemen, 'that 
graduates of an engineering school will have some 



EFFICIENT SPEAKING 15 

knowledge of the principles of their profession; but 
you, Mr. Chancellor, cannot emphasize too strongly 
the advantage that accrues to men from the ability 
to think upon their feet; to express extempore a 
well-thought-out proposition; to adapt themselves 
and their conversation instantaneously to changing 
conditions as they may arise. We value this ability 
of clear and rapid thinking and expression more 
highly than almost anything else.' Let us mark this 
bit of testimony Exhibit 2. 

In Salesmanship. — "Now for Exhibit 3. The gen- 
eral manager of an international business house 
which employs thousands of salesmen, recently said 
to me, *I never can get enough men for the more 
important positions of the firm, because there are 
so very few men who can present their own argu- 
ments clearly and overcome the arguments of the 
other side without giving offence. At the present 
time I have three positions paying $5,000 a year 
each, and I am unable to find a man of personality 
who has the qualifications that I have indicated.' 
But seriously diflferent as these three points may 
seem on their face, is there not at the bottom an 
underlying unity to all of them? What does 'writ- 
ing and speaking the mother tongue well' mean but 
the conveying thought clearly and powerfully — to 
persuade? What does 'thinking on one's feet and 
adapting one's case to the case of the other man' 
mean but the skilful presentation of facts — in order 
to persuade? x\nd what does 'an ability to meet 
the case of the opponent without giving offence' 



16 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

mean but convincing refutation in order to per- 
suade? Is not persuasion of one sort or another, 
whether it be to present facts that they may be 
accepted, or to induce a mood in the mind of the 
reader to correspond to that of the writer, at the 
basis of all language ; and how much more at the 
basis of all spoken language, and above all, of 
oratory, which has for its fundamental object the 
moving of bodies of men to action as the speaker 
directs them." 

Scope of This Course. — The course in Extempo- 
raneous Speaking is designed, not to supplant, but 
to supplement, the courses in Oratory and Argu- 
mentation. It is planned especially to meet the 
needs of the non-professional or informal speaker 
who desires to cultivate facility in clear, convincing 
and effective expression, whether in private conver- 
sation, in business, or in any of the social, political, 
or professional organizations with which he may be 
connected. 

The distinction between extemporaneous and im- 
promptu speaking should be clear at the outset. 
The former in no wise implies a lack of preparation 
on the part of the speaker, but designates that 
broad field of public speech which lies just with- 
out the confines of the formal oration, sermon, legal 
address, or platform lecture. The chapters that 
follow are especially designed to aid in the prepara- 
tion of speeches for the wide range of informal occa- 
sions that present themselves constantly to edu- 
cated men. 



n 



Chapter II 

PREPARING THE SPEECH 

Three Methods. — There are three ways of prepar- 
ing a speech that are in general use by successful 
speakers. The first is to write it out and to memorize 
it or familiarize one's self with it by frequent re- 
hearsals. The second is to prepare an outline or 
plan, and to practice the speech from these notes 
until a reasonable grasp of it is obtained. The third 
is to divide the subject mentally and to trust to the 
inspiration of the occasion for the most effective 
phrasing. The last method, while allowing the most 
freedom and spontaneity to the speaker who is able 
to read his audience accurately and to take instant 
advantage of their moods, is not recommended to 
inexperienced speakers. For classroom work, the 
second is undoubtedly the safest and most valuable 
method for the student, although writing out the 
speech in full may be helpful to those afflicted with 
nervousness. WhichcA^er method is chosen, the 
introduction and conclusion of the speech should be 
definitely phrased and committed, for those are the 
places at which embarrassment and hesitation are 
most likely to overtake the novice, and at which a 
''break" is most damaging to the success of the 
speech. 

17 



18 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Value of Preparation. — A story is told of Presi- 
dent George E. Vincent, of the University of Min- 
nesota, who being listed for a toast at an alumni 
dinner, determined to be ready for whatever pleas- 
antries the toastmaster might perpetrate in intro- 
ducing him, and to this end, prepared no less than 
eight tentative introductions to his own speech. The 
result of this forethought was one of the most 
notable and delightful speeches in the history of the 
association. 

William Dean Howells, writing of Mark Twain's 
methods, says : "He knew that from the beginning 
of oratory the orator's spontaneity was for the 
silence and solitude of the closet where he mused 
his words to an imaginary audience ; that this was 
the use of orators from Demosthenes and Cicero up 
and down. He studied every word and syllable. 
He studied every tone and gesture, and he forecast 
the result with the real audience from its result on 
the imagined audience. Therefore it was beautiful 
to see him and to hear him. He rejoiced in the 
pleasure he gave, and in the blows of surprise he 
dealt, and, because he had his end in mind, he knew 
where to stop." 

More significant testimony as to the value of 
careful preparation can hardly be imagined. 

Choosing the Subject. — Usually the subject is de- 
termined by the occasion, but where this is not the 
case, the speaker should none the less consider the 
occasion and the probable audience in choosing his 
topic. For classwork the range of possible subjects 



PREPARING THE SPEECH 19 

is almost unlimited, with this caution : Do not 
select topics concerning which you have no previous 
knowledge or interest. A speech should impress 
your own personality upon the subject. A mere 
report of some one else's ideas is not the de- 
sideratum. 

First Steps. — Having decided upon a subject the 
first thing to do is to think over and reduce to logi- 
cal form what you already know and believe about 
it. This is essential. Even though your subsequent 
reading and study may completely alter your first 
opinions or ideas, the possession at the outset of a 
definite viewpoint will illuminate your investigation 
and make it of real value to you, besides doubling 
the probability of your making an entertaining and 
convincing speech. 

A complete mastery of the subject is essential to 
intelligent speaking. The speaker's concern should 
be to select the most important out of the mass 
of material at hand. Moreover, for a ten-minute 
speech he should have enough material for a half- 
hour. There is no more effective cure for nervous- 
ness and lack of confidence than to have more than 
enough ammunition in reserve, so that you cannot 
be disconcerted by a random question. 

• Theme and Purpose. — The selection of material 
to be used out of the mass in hand will naturally 
take the form of a narrowing of the general subject 
to some particular phase or theme which will be 
determined by the speaker's purpose. Authorities 



20 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

differ very widely in the matter of classifying 
speeches according to their kinds or to the pur- 
poses in speaking, but the differences are mainly a 
matter of terminology, some preferring to adopt 
the terms of psychology, others to group according 
to the ends sought by the speaker. Inasmuch as 
the speaker may need, in arousing the audience to 
action, for example, to appeal to two or more of the 
psychological functions of the mind, such as the 
imagination and the reason, the latter method seems 
less confusing, and will be adopted in this text. 
The speaker's purpose then will be either Clearness, 
Acceptance, Action, or Entertainment. 

Four Ends of Speech. — Clearness: Here the 
speaker is concerned simply to convey to the au- 
dience a definite picture of the subject in hand, 
whether it be a nebula, a propaganda, or a gas 
engine. His appeal is to the understanding; and 
both subject-matter and phrasing must be selected 
to that end. 

Acceptance involves a step farther than clearness. 
The audience must not only discern what is in the 
speaker's mind, but they must approve it and adopt 
it as their own. In working for acceptance the 
speaker may appeal either to the reason by argu- 
ment or to the sentiments by persuasion — or to 
both, as is the usual practice, because the average 
audience contains about an even proportion of per- 
sons dominated by reason or sentiment. 

Action goes beyond acceptance and involves an 



PREPARING THE SPEECH 21 

appeal to the emotions or to the impelling motives — 
patriotism, ambition, self-preservation, honor, etc. 
It is the most important and most difficult of the 
four ends, and in a measure embraces them all. To 
rouse to action the speaker must be lucid, per- 
suasive, interesting, convincing, and finally his plea 
must be virile. 

Entertainment: To be successful, all speeches 
should entertain; that is to say, the speaker must 
never lose sight of the importance of interesting- 
ness as a quality of discourse. But we must dis- 
tinguish between entertainingness as a quality and 
as an end. In the latter case it constitutes amuse- 
ment, and the speaker's appeal is to the imagination, 
the fancy, and the sense of humor, which necessi- 
tates a different treatment of the subject. 

Having decided upon one of these four ends, the 
speaker will adopt the theme best suited to attain 
the desired end, and will be ready to begin the 
actual preparation of the speech, the divisions of 
which — the introduction, the discussion, and the 
conclusion — are treated in the following chapters. 

Studying the Audience. — Not less important than 
thorough preparation is the study of human nature, 
to enable the speaker to read his audience, to know 
what testimony will convince them, when a point 
is accepted, when further proof is needed, and how 
to redeem a speech that is not going well. There 
are no rules to make this task easy. Constant watch- 



22 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

fulness and the will to profit by experience will 
alone avail to develop one's natural powers in this 
direction. For one thing, thorough preparation in 
advance will leave the speaker freer to watch his 
hearers and to note his effect upon them. 



Chapter III 
THE INTRODUCTION 

Functions. — The opening moments of the speech 
are the most embarrassing to the inexperienced 
speaker, and at the same time the most momentous. 
The sea of upturned faces is filled with imaginary 
terrors for the novice and he may easily wreck his 
craft if it is not well ballasted by preparation and 
confidence. In these crucial moments the speaker 
has what he may later have to strive for, the atten- 
tion of his audience. A position of leadership is ac- 
corded him; the minds of his auditors are attentive 
and alert, ready to follow him. 

In return for their attention they have a right to 
demand of the speaker certain definite things. First, 
that he have something to say to them ; second, 
that he say it clearly and interestingly; third, that 
his bearing be dignified, courteous, and genial. All 
of which things must be unmistakably indicated in 
the opening remarks. The function of the introduc- 
tion then is threefold. 

1. To establish friendly relations between speaker 
and audience. 

2. To establish relationship between audience and 
subject. 

3. To state clearly the purpose of the speaker. 

23 



24 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Speaker and the Audience. — Almost every audi- 
ence, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts — the 
friendly, the indifferent, and the hostile. The dis- 
creet speaker will gauge the situation and endeavor 
to determine how much consideration he must 
accord to each faction in order to fuse the whole 
audience into a body sufficiently interested and well 
disposed to follow his discourse to the end. 

Where the friendly element predominates, the 
speaker need lose no time on this function. Where 
indifference or hostility is the prevailing feeling a 
serious effort must be made to allay it and supplant 
it with tolerance or interest. The attitude of the 
speaker becomes one of conciliation. He is willing 
to concede certain things to the opposition, and in 
return appeals to their sense of fair play. No better 
example of a successful introduction of this -nature 
can be found than in Henry Ward Beecher's famous 
address in Liverpool, October 16, 1863. Popular 
sympathy in England at the time was strongly with 
the Southern cause, and Beecher found the towns 
placarded against him and the audiences violently 
hostile. In the Liverpool address, after discussing 
free speech briefly, he said : 

"Now, personally, it is a matter of very little 
consequence to me whether I speak here to-night 
or not. (Laughter and cheers.) But one thing 
is very certain : if you do permit me to speak 
here to-night, you will hear some very plain talk- 
ing. (Applause and hisses.) You will not find 
me a man that dared to speak about Great Britain 
three thousand miles off, and then is afraid to 



THE INTRODUCTION 25 

speak to Great Britain when he stands on her 
shores. (Immense applause and hisses.) And 
if I do not mistake the tone and temper of 
Englishmen, they had rather have a man who 
opposes them in a manly way than a sneak that 
agrees with them in an unmanly way. (Bravo.) 
Now, if I can carry you with me by sound con- 
victions, I shall be immensely glad, but if I 
cannot carry you with me by facts and sound 
arguments, I do not wish you to go with me at 
all; and all that I ask is simply fair play." 
(Applause and a voice: "You shall have it, 
too.") 

The Audience and the Subject. — With an audi- 
ence wholly friendl}^ the speaker may, at his dis- 
cretion, omit this function of the introduction and 
trust to making the speech as a whole sufficiently 
striking and interesting. But instances are com- 
paratively few where friendliness expresses itself in 
enthusiasm. Indeed, the majority of questions 
which we discuss in our every-day affairs elicit but 
a mild mental assent without any stirring to affirma- 
tive action. Hence if action is the end sought, the 
speaker may do well to proceed as though his entire 
audience were indifferent to the subject. 

Indifference in an audience usually grows out of 
a distaste for being bored. And if it is possible to 
define so multiplex an experience as being bored 
we may say that this sensation, so far as audiences 
are concerned, usually arises when the subject 
touches neither their experience nor their interest, 
or is presented in an unauthoritative or uninterest- 
ing manner. It will be noted that our definition is 



26 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

in negative terms, from which the speaker may 
deduce that the antidote will be positive — vigorous 
and striking. 

Boldness, sincerity, and geniality will go a long 
way toward securing the attention of indifferent 
listeners; and if in addition the speaker can impress 
upon them the importance of the subject to them 
as individuals or as a body he may proceed with 
his serious arguments with reasonable assurance of 
an attentive hearing. A few striking and original 
phrases, a well-chosen illustration, a hint of the un- 
usual — any device that will present a familiar topic 
in a new guise and make it personal and vital — 
will dispel indifference, the greatest obstacle a 
speaker has to overcome. 

Where hostility toward the subject is manifest, 
it must be met by concession, as in the case of hos- 
tility toward the speaker, and the speaker must 
establish some common ground from which they 
can approach gradually the things which cause 
division. William Jennings Bryan almost habitu- 
ally begins his address by laying down some broad 
generalization from the Constitution or the Scrip- 
tures, which every one accepts, and then proceeds 
to develop from it the viewpoint he seeks to estab- 
lish in the minds of his auditors. Beecher, in his 
Liverpool speech already quoted, had to overcome 
violent antagonism to his subject as well as to him- 
self. Some speakers prefer to meet opposition in a 
fighting spirit and rely upon their mettle to win 
through. 



THE INTRODUCTION ^7 

Statement of Purpose. — -Occasionally a speaker 
is heard who is so zealous to be fair-minded and 
impartial that the audience is kept playing at hide 
and seek with his real viewpoint in a jungle of 
bewilderingly vague generalizations. If you have a 
purpose in speaking — which is your only excuse for 
speaking — you will save both time and effort by 
taking the audience into your confidence at the out- 
set. If you are arguing for universal arbitration, 
argue for it. Let your purpose be known at the 
start. Later on you may treat the other side as 
judicially as you please, but first be sure that you 
have implanted in the minds of the audience a 
definite conception of your own purpose. Occa- 
sionally, of course, your obejct may be best attained 
by indirection — as in Mark Anthony's oration over 
the body of Caesar — but such occasions are excep- 
tional ; they seldom occur with the non-professional 
speaker. 

With these functions of the introduction in mind 
it is worth while to examine the speeches of men 
successful in leading human thought, to see what 
forms the opening remarks may take. Any rigid 
classification is impossible because the combination 
of subject and occasion, and the personality and the 
style of the speaker conduce to an infinite variety. 
An examination of the speeches included in this 
volume will make it evident that there are certain 
types or forms which are most frequently used and 
are generally effective. Knapp and French in their 
handbook, "The Speech for Special Occasions," 



28 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

classify these common types as Personal, General, 
Illustrative, and the Anecdote. 

The Personal Introduction. — This is the most 
common type of introduction, and if kept within the 
bounds of sincerity and modesty is one of the 
easiest and safest ways of getting in touch with 
an audience. In it the speaker has an opportunity 
at once to express his gratification at the privilege 
or honor accorded him, and to deprecate his ability; 
also to win the cordiality of the audience by paying 
his tribute of respect to the organization, or what- 
ever agency may have called the meeting together. 
Care must be taken not to violate good taste either 
by overpraise or over-humility. The personality of 
the speaker should be merged in the occasion and 
not exalted above it. We have no better example 
of a graceful introduction than the second paragraph 
from Henry W. Grady's oration on The New South 
delivered before the New England Society. 

"Let me express to you my appreciation of 
the kindness by which I am permitted to address 
you. I make this abrupt statement advisedly, for 
I feel that if, when I raise my provincial voice 
in this ancient and august presence, I could find 
courage for no more than the opening sentence, 
it would be well if in that instance I had met in 
a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and had 
perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my lips 
and grace in my heart. 

"Permitted through your kindness to catch my 
second wind, let me say that I appreciate the 
significance of being tlie first Southerner to speak 



THE INTRODUCTION 29 

at this board, which bears the substance, if it 
surpasses the semblance, of the original New 
England's hospitality, and honors a sentiment that 
in turn honors you, in which my personality is 
lost and the compliment to my people made 
plain." 

For other examples of this type, see Paul's Ad- 
dress before Agrippa {page 143), Woodrow Wilson's 
speech on "The Bible and Progress" {page 163), 
Charles W. Eliot's Eulogy of Julia Ward Howe 
{page 155). 

The General Introduction. — The general begin- 
ning is more formal than the personal introduction, 
and is more frequently used in speeches of dedica- 
tion and presentation, or when the occasion, not the 
speaker, is the important affair. It will begin by 
discussing the significance of such occasions or sub- 
jects in general, and proceed thence naturally to the 
specific occasion or theme. For variations of this 
type read Woodrow V/ilson's address on ''The 
Issues of Reform" {page 241), and F. H. Wines' on 
"The New Criminology" {page 219). 

The Illustrative Introduction. — The speaker de- 
sirous of fixing a certain viewpoint in the mind of 
his hearers can frequently do so more effectively by 
some well-chosen illustration or comparison than 
by simple statement of his own. To he an illus- 
tration in any real sense the figure employed must 
involve things that are known by that audience. 
The comparison, if made, must be to something 



30 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

familiar. Quotations and illustrations from His- 
tory, Science, or the Arts frequently combine the 
advantages of familiarity and authenticity, and are 
doubly effective. Nicholas Murray Butler begins 
his speech at the inaugural exercises at the Univer- 
sity of Virginia {page 193) with a reference to one 
of the familiar dialogues of Plato. 

The Anecdote. — If well told and pertinent, an 
anecdote gives the speaker a splendid start, but 
if poorly told it imposes a tremendous handicap. 
Suggestions concerning the telling of stories are 
found elsewhere in this book. In deciding upon 
an introduction of this nature, the speaker must 
consider his own ability. If it is not a dependable 
quantity he had far better risk his anecdotes in the 
main body of the speech, where a failure to secure 
a laugh has" not quite so damaging an effect. 

Introduction for a Technical Speech. — When a 
professional man is addressing members of his own 
profession his choice of introduction will be gov- 
erned by the same motives as apply to any other 
speech. But the occasion frequently occurs when 
the professional man must talk to laymen and when 
his technical vocabulary is not intelligible to his 
audience. Salesmen selling goods, engineers, and 
architects presenting plans to committees or boards, 
specialists who have occasion to interest a mixed 
audience find these functions added to the other 
requirements of the introduction : 



THE INTRODUCTION 31 

1. To make clear the general scope or purpose of 
the subject. 

2. To make it vital by comparison with familiar 
things, or by setting forth its advantages in terms 
of utility, economy, or comfort. 

3. To define such essential principles as will 
enable the audience to grasp the subject as a whole 
as the speech proceeds with its development. 

The speech on "Vanadium Steels" (page 103), 
given by a student in the classroom at Swarth- 
more, is opened effectively in accordance with these 
principles. 



Chapter IV 
THE CONCLUSION 

Purpose of the Conclusion. — The closing para- 
graphs of the extemporaneous speech, while not so 
formal as the peroration in oratory nor as logically 
exacting as the summary in debate, have yet a very 
definite relation to the speech as a whole, and an es- 
sential function to perform. The conclusion is neces- 
sary to give final emphasis to the theme, to fix it in 
the minds of the auditors, and having done this, to 
enable the speaker to take leave of them gracefully 
while their interest is at flood-tide. He has pre- 
sented his case, drawn his picture, or pleaded his 
cause, as may be. Nothing new is to be added. 
The audience must not be wearied by repetition, yet 
something is needed to drive the argument home — 
something brief, vivid, striking, that will send the 
audience away with the speaker's thought strongly 
impressed and with the satisfied feeling that comes 
from hearing a clear and interesting discourse force- 
fully and happily concluded. 

The attention quickens involuntarily when the 
audience senses the approaching end, and the 
speaker must be prepared to turn this quickening 
to his advantage in pressing home his thought. 

32 



THE CONCLUSION 33 

Qualities of the Conclusion. — To fulfil these pur- 
poses, the conclusion must have certai:. definite 
qualities, the foremost of which are brevity, force, 
and appropriateness. Brevity is the sine qua non 
of the successful ending. Do not multiply your 
phrases however they may please your own ears. 
An audience disappointed of an anticipated termina- 
tion quickly grows impatient and restive. Do not 
be tempted by the seeming opportunity to add just 
one thought more. Deliver your conclusion as you 
have planned it, and leave the audience satisfied but 
not satiated. 

Force is essential to the success of the conclusion. 
The audience expects a climax. The speaker should 
feel the necessity of it. Yet many thoughtful 
speeches are weakened by a lame and halting con- 
clusion both as to voice and sentiment. Confidence 
and conviction beget like qualities in the audience, 
and should be dominant characteristics of the clos- 
ing paragraph. 

Appropriateness is the final test of a good con- 
clusion. The closing paragraph must be in keeping 
with the body of the speech, which efifect is most 
readily attained by having the purpose of the speech 
clearly in mind when planning the conclusion. If 
the discussion is simple, personal and direct, a 
sudden turning to the grand, sublime, and reverential 
style is almost certain to produce an anticlimax. If 
clearness is the end sought, if the speech is an expo- 
sition, a narrative, or deals with technical or scien- 
tific subjects, the conclusion will appropriately be 



84 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

used to intensify the mental picture of the situation, 
conditions, laws, or mechanisms that have been dis- 
cussed. If the effort has been to win conviction, or 
rouse to action, a more impassioned style in closing 
will be justified. Whatever the purpose in speak- 
ing, the conclusion should seem to be the natural 
and logical ending to the train of ideas presented. 
The conclusion must conclude. 

Forms of the Conclusion. — In closing, as in begin- 
ning the speech, the speaker is not limited by fixed 
forms or rules, but may employ that kind of conclu- 
sion which seems best adapted to the subject, to the 
occasion, or to his style and purpose in speaking. 
Knapp and French classify the most frequently used 
types as the Personal, the Summary, the Hortatory 
ending, and the Quotation. A study of the speeches 
in Part II will disclose examples of these types, and 
show how they may be varied or combined to suit 
the purpose of the speaker. 

The Personal Ending. — The personal ending is 
employed when the speaker feels that his climax is 
too abrupt to serve as a leave-taking, or when the 
occasion seems to require the addition of a few 
personal words. A brief appreciation of the cour- 
tesy or patience shown him, and an expression of 
his pleasure in speaking, serve this purpose admir- 
ably. Often, too, the speaker may make his sin- 
cerity felt by employing his closing words to 
express his personal tribute or conviction. 

Professor Bancroft, in his speech on *'The Future 



THE CONCLUSION 35 

of Chemistry" {page 187), uses a combination of 
the personal ending with the summary. 

The Summary. — The informal speech does not 
require the exact summary that is used in debate, 
but in modification it is one of the safest and most 
forceful methods for the inexperienced speaker. The 
aim must be to sum up what the speech has at- 
tempted to convey, not the particular step or argu- 
ments employed. This is well illustrated in the 
conclusion of M. T. Frisbie's speech on **The Un- 
known Quantities" {page 81). The aim must be 
to present the gist of the speech in a striking way; 
an epigram or a paraphrased proverb or quotation 
will linger in the hearer's mind after specific argu- 
ments have faded. 

Hortatory Ending. — This is the natural ending for 
all persuasive speeches, wherein the speaker seeks 
to arouse the emotions of the audience or to secure 
their action, although it is by no means confined to 
this one type of speech. 

The study of the following examples will reveal 
its efifectiveness under widely varying conditions : 

Woodrow Wilson's address at the Jackson Day 
Dinner {page 227). 

Nicholas Murray Butler at the Lake Mohonk 
Conference {page 179). 

Nicholas Murray Butler at the University of Vir- 
ginia {page 193). 

Illustration. — ^Under this head we may group the 
quotation, the allusion, and the general illustration, 



36 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

through their common function of strengthening the 
speaker's presentation by associating it with fami- 
liar and accepted things and with the thoughts of 
men of established position and authority. 

President Vincent's Inaugural Address {page 
197) concludes with a combination of the horta- 
tory ending and a quotation from Goethe which 
happily expresses the broad ideas of the speech. 

Ex-President Eliot, of Harvard, in his tribute to 
Julia Ward Howe {page 1.55), makes graceful em- 
ployment of her own lines in concluding. 

Robert M. La Follette, in his speech in the United 
States Senate on the Railway Rates Bill {page 117), 
reenforces his general contention by a quotation 
from Daniel Webster. 

Preparation. — Whatever form of conclusion may 
be chosen by the speaker, it should be carefully 
phrased in advance and in some cases even com- 
mitted to memory. The assurance that comes from 
the knowledge that one has at his tongue's end a 
forceful and adequate conclusion contributes greatly 
to the confidence and effectiveness of the informal 
speaker. 



Chapter V 

THE DISCUSSION 

Importance. — Important as are the beginning and 
the ending, it remains that the speech itself is the 
thing. The impression made by the speaker will 
depend ultimately upon the quality and the delivery 
of the main body of the speech. We have shown 
that the introduction and conclusion serve their 
important purposes, but excellence in these two 
divisions must in no sense be considered a disguise 
for poverty of thought or slovenly presentation 
throughout the speech itself. 

The Speaker's Problem. — Assuming adequate 
mental preparation, the speaker's part is to get his 
material across the footlights; to make his hearers 
see the thing as he sees it; to accept what he has 
accepted; to be moved as he is moved. A mere 
statement of fact or opinion is not sufficient. Every 
audience contains persons of widely varying degrees 
of intelligence, information, and opinion, and the 
speaker is to bring them all to one viewpoint, his 
own. He must foresee these differences when plan- 
ning his speech; must endeavor to foresee what 
points the audience will find difficult of acceptance, 
and must elaborate these. He must consider that a 

37 



58 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

statement which is almost axiomatic to one part 
of his audience may seem only crass assertion to 
another. 

Efficiency in speaking- involves carrying the audi- 
ence with one through difficulties and across ob- 
stacles, not in running a spectacular race and dis- 
tancing the field. 

Assertion; Four Kinds of Support. — Whatever 
the purpose of the speech, whatever the subject or 
theme, the statement of it in the first instance will 
be mere assertion, and it becomes the business of 
the speaker to support these assertions. 

Professor Arthur E. Phillips, in his book, "Ef- 
fective Speaking," makes the following analysis of 
the four forms of support, which he defines as Re- 
statement, General Illustration, Specific Instance, 
and Testimony : 

"We say (assertion) 'Greece had great men/ 
and continue, 'She had master minds.' This is 
Restatement; we have said the same thing over 
again in different words. We go on, 'She had 
orators, philosophers, poets.' This is a General 
Illustration. We have supported the assertion by 
presenting some of its general features. We pro- 
ceed, 'She had Demosthenes, Plato, Homer, etc' 
This is Specific Instance. We have strengthened 
our original assertion by actual cases. Finally, 
we say, 'Macaulay says : "Her intellectual em- 
pire is imperishable." ' This is Testimony. We 
have supported our assertion by corroboration. 
It will now be clear that the great task of the 
speaker who would be effective in the profes- 
sional, social or business field is the develop- 



THE DISCUwSSION 39 

ment of judgment in respect as to when an asser- 
tion needs support, and the kind and degree of 
support demanded." 

The example given is merely illustrative of the 
use of the four forms of support, and is not in- 
tended as a model. Few statements need such 
elaborate defense. Orciinarily, one or two of the 
four will afford ample support, Restatement and 
Specific Instance being most commonly used. 

Qualities of the Discussion. — While it is both im- 
possible and undesirable to prescribe definite forms 
to be followed in planning the divScussion, there are 
certain qualities which an analysis of successful 
speeches reveals as being essential. These are 
Unity, Sequence, Clearness, Force, Elegance, and 
Appeal. 

Unity. — The principle of unity requires that the 
speaker shall stick to his theme. Unity can be in- 
sured only by a careful planning of the speech in 
advance. Unity means no digressions that do not 
directly strengthen the argument, and no favorite 
stories or quotations that do not illustrate the case 
in point. The impromptu speaker is likely to vio- 
late the principle of unity owing to the lack of 
perspective, which leads him to over-elaborate 
trivial details. Read the speech of Jefferson Davis 
"On Withdrawing from the Union" {page 139), and 
notice how inevitable each successive thought is to 
the progress of the speech. 



40 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Sequence. — Logical arrangement or sequence of 
the material enables the audience to follow the 
argument more readily than when the speaker 
chases his theme from pillar to post. In arguing 
from past to future, from cause to effect, or effect 
to cause, in description or narration, the speaker 
should have his end clearly in view and arrange his 
material at the outset so that each step shall carry 
him nearer the goal. Each point should be estab- 
lished in turn, the speech progressing smoothly and 
logically toward an inevitable conclusion. Examine 
these speeches in Part II, and notice their 
structure : 

''Ethics of Corporate Management," by Charles 
W Eliot {page 59). 

"The Unknown Quantities in Advertising," by 
M. T. Frisbie {page 81). 

Clearness. — The importance of clearness cannot 
be overestimated. Words and phrasing should con- 
vey exactly the shade of meaning intended. How 
futile to build an elaborate argument upon a prem- 
ise that is misunderstood by the audience! Vague 
phrases must be avoided ; the minds of the listeners 
must be held to the topic by specific illustrations. 
An audience cannot turn back a page to clear up a 
doubtful point, but must grasp the idea as it is 
spoken, a fact which the speaker should bear in 
mind when preparing his speech. 

All of the speeches of Robert M. La Follette, 
in Part II, are notably clear, owing to the speaker's 
unerring instinct for the right word. 



THE DISCUSSION 41 

Force. — Many a speech, otherwise excellent, fails 
to convince because it lacks the forceful qualities 
which are requisite to impress and hold the minds 
of the auditors. Psychology teaches that attention 
travels in waves, not in straight lines, and the 
speaker must plan to ride the crest of each wave. 
This means that there must be light and shade in 
the matter of emphasis, on both material and de- 
livery. Striking phrases and illustrations, varied 
sentence-structure, questions asked and answered, 
will all contribute to forcefulness. Let the speech 
be a vigorous expression of personality; the various 
devices will then fall into almost unconscious em- 
ployment. 

Woodrow Wilson's speech, *'The Bible and Prog- 
ress" {page 163) is an excellent example of the 
forceful treatment of a familiar theme. 

Elegance. — Elegance of diction distinguishes the 
great from the mediocre orator, and while the non- 
professional speaker may have little use for the 
oratorical style, he should recognize that distinction 
in speech is an advantage worth striving for. Gram- 
mar and pronunciation should be above reproach, 
and a careful study of the principles of rhetoric will 
repay the average speaker many times over. 

George E. Vincent's "Inuagural Address" {page 
197) and Nicholas Murray Butler's ''The Univer- 
sity is a Democracy" {page 193) are illustrative of 
the distinction conferred by elegance in style and 
diction. 



42 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Appeal. — Finally, the speech must be interesting 
to the very people for whom it is intended. It must 
appeal to them, to their reason, sentiments, under- 
standing, or humor. To give it this factor of per- 
sonal interest the speaker must connect the ideas he 
seeks to establish with things already known and 
accepted by the audience. In every mind there is 
a wealth of knowledge gathered from previous ex- 
periences — facts, impressions, sensations, and opin- 
ions. These are materials to hand for the speaker. 
If he is clever enough to select his illustrations and 
evidence from the things already accepted, his 
speech will appeal to the listeners in a way that 
will go far toward success. 



Chapter VI 

PERSONALITY 

Winning Personality. — A winning personality is 
the open sesame to the good will of an audience. 
The speaker who, like William Jennings Bryan, 
steps before his auditors with a commanding pres- 
ence, greeting them with a genial smile and includ- 
ing every one present in a sympathetic glance, has 
half won his battle before beginning to speak. The 
audience warms towards such a man and settles 
back comfortably, confident that they will like him, 
and be interested in what he has to say. Such per- 
sonality in its highest type is born in the man ; what 
the audience gets is merely the outward reflection 
of the nature and disposition of the speaker who 
stands before them. 

Cultivating Personality. — Those less fortunately 
gifted can successfully cultivate a pleasing presence 
by observing in others the qualities which produce 
a pleasing effect and by criticizing themselves for 
any deficiency in this respect. Study, analyze the 
effect that distinguished speakers have upon you, 
and ascertain what qualities contribute to it. 

Geniality. — Foremost among the elements of a 
winning personality is that overflowing of good 

43 



44 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

nature and good humor which we term geniality. 
The speaker should like his audience. He should 
desire to be friends with them and to carry them 
with him timicably. The old saying that like begets 
like is very true of the correspondence in feeling 
between speaker and audience. 

Dignity. — In cultivating geniality, the good taste 
of the speaker must warn him not to overstep the 
bounds of self-respect. He must present a dignified 
bearing. Any cheapness, vulgarity, or servility ; any 
conscious playing down to the audience will in- 
evitably displease them and react unfavorably upon 
the speaker. 

Earnestness. — Earnestness must be the guarantee 
that the speaker is not talking against time. Ear- 
nestness should comprise about equal parts of sin- 
cerity and enthusiasm. The speaker who is enthu- 
siastic in his convictions will be earnest in his bear- 
ing. Earnestness is his tribute to the sincerity of 
the audience. Flippancy, familiarity, and super- 
ficiality are to be avoided when the occasion is 
serious. 

Originality. — This, above all, "to thine own self 
be true." We do not go to hear speakers with the 
same motive with which we turn to our encyclo- 
pedias, to find out the recorded knowledge of the 
matter in hand. What we seek is the speaker's 
own mind and belief and knowledge, and the re- 
action of his personality on the subject. Serious 
and thorough thinking upon the topic under dis- 



PERSONALITY 45 

cussion will give the speaker a poise and power 
that will be quickly sensed by the audience. The 
attention quickens involuntarily when challenged 
by a personality exhibiting both authority and 
originality. 

Mental Bearing. — Without dilating upon the rela- 
tions existing between physical attitude and mental 
bearing, we may say that both should exhibit the 
four qualities that contribute to the winning person- 
ality: Geniality, dignity, earnestness, and original- 
ity. All four should be reflected alike in the 
speaker's mind, manner, and method. 

Delivery. — The manner of delivery of any form of 
public discourse is appropriately determined by its 
style. Oratory and Argumentation have special re- 
quirements which cannot be considered under the 
head of Extemporaneous Speaking. The distin- 
guishing features of the extempore speech should be 
simplicity, spontaneity, and directness, from which 
it follows that the delivery of the speech should 
exhibit much of the freedom of dignified and serious 
conversation. The occasion itself will exercise a 
controlling influence on the delivery. Most non- 
professional speakers err on the side of undue for- 
mality in their occasional efforts. Not being accus- 
tomed to facing an audience and reading its moods, 
but impressed by the necessity of a serious effort, 
their style is often stilted and clogged with bookish 
phrases acquired from ill-digested reading. 

Speak clearly, correctly, and confidently; articu- 



46 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

late distinctly, that you may be heard ; and for the 
rest, remember that you are talking to each member 
of your audience personally and directly, and that 
it is necessary that each one shall hear and under- 
stand you. 

Indistinctness, nasality, unpleasant mannerisms, 
and colloquialisms are to be avoided. The conver- 
sational tone does not excuse carelessness in diction, 
nor in pronunciation or rhetoric. 

Gestures should be used without hesitation when- 
ever the inclination to gesture arises spontaneously 
from the earnestness of the speaker or the demands 
of his speech. Studied or conscious effect in gesture 
has, however, little excuse in informal speaking. 



Chapter VII 
AFTER-DINNER SPEAKING 

The After-Dinner Speech. — With the exception 
of pulpit oratory, the after-dinner speech is prob- 
ably the most widely practiced form of public 
speaking in America. Organizations of every de- 
scription — social, political, commercial, fraternal, 
and literary — all have adopted the banquet with its 
attendant speech-making as an annual function. 
Dinners are constantly being given in honor of 
some person or event, not to mention the countless 
private functions at which informal speaking plays 
an important part. 

Qualities of the Toast. — The prevalent miscon- 
ception that the after-dinner speech must be humor- 
ous is responsible for many failures. The essential 
quality of after-dinner oratory is felicity. It is a 
time of good cheer and good fellowship. For the 
time being, at least, all who sit at the table are 
friendly, and persons having antagonistic opinions 
should refrain from discussing them. Subjects to 
be avoided are scientific and philosophical themes 
which require concentrated attention, but this does 
not mean that the speaker must turn entirely from 
serious questions and attempt the role of humorist. 

47 



48 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

The speech should be agreeable, both in its matter 
and manner of presentation. To be agreeable, how- 
ever, it is not necessary to be humorous; to lack 
humor is not necessarily to be dull. Woodrow 
Wilson's speech at the Jackson Day Dinner {page 
227) is an excellent example of a felicitous after- 
dinner speech. It was widely discussed at the time. 

Choosing the Theme. — A wide range of topics is 
open to the after-dinner speaker. He is under no 
compulsion to search for a theme upon which he 
believes all persons present will agree, or one which 
is so new that they will have no opinion on it. An 
audience always respects a speaker who frankly 
differs from them, who states both sides fairly, and 
candidly sets forth his own contentions. There is 
no better source of after-dinner topics than local or 
general issues of present interest. 

Preparation. — The subject chosen, the speaker 
must give himself to careful preparation. Though 
he may be asked to make only "a few informal re- 
marks," he should, nevertheless, be thoroughly 
ready. The informal remarks which are most appre- 
ciated are those which are formally prepared. The 
speaker who trusts to the inspiration of the moment 
for something to say is likely to disappoint both 
himself and his audience. No one is justified in 
taking the time of the audience unless he knows 
what he is to say and how he will say it. The hints 
given in an earlier chapter regarding the methods 
of preparing a speech are applicable to after-dinner 



AFTER-DINNER SPEAKING 49 

speaking. But whether the method be memoriter 
or extemporaneous, or a combination of both, the 
preparation should be thorough, the more especially 
if the extemporaneous method is chosen. 

What Lowell said of writing, "the art consists in 
knowing what to leave in the inkpot/' is equally 
true of speaking. The requirements of after-dinner 
speaking make especially important the art of know- 
ing what to leave unsaid. The audience is not in a 
critical mood. It will applaud almost any senti- 
ment, and gives the noisiest approval to that which 
is jolliest or most entertaining. After-dinner ap- 
proval, however, is not always confirmed by the 
judgment of the next morning. 

Many after-dinner speeches outlast the patience 
of the audience. Speeches of five to ten minutes 
should prevail. It is said that the secret of Senator 
Hoar's perennial popularity at the Harvard Phi 
Beta Kappa dinner was that his speeches contained 
one general idea clearly stated, and one fresh story 
well told. 

Stories. — The after-dinner speech should contain 
more stories than other forms of speech, but the 
stories should be fresh and authentic. Nothing is 
more wearisome than the stale story, and to tell an 
old yarn as a personal experience is not only bad 
ethics, but is likely to repel rather than amuse the 
audience. 

Delivery. — As previously noted, the after-dinner 
speaker must not only have agreeable matter, but 



50 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

he must add an agreeable manner. The speaker is 
usually the guest of the company, and to his host 
he will be gracious. At the beginning he may say 
some words of cordial greeting, or counter the pleas- 
antry of the toastmaster, always remembering that 
sincerity is the requisite in all true compliment, and 
that fulsome praise is worse than none at all. Such 
a beginning not only serves the amenities, but 
accords with the simple, direct manner of speaking 
which is one of the charms of after-dinner oratory. 
Whatever makes the speech seem informal adds 
much to its effectiveness. 

If the Athenian orators dreaded to mispronounce 
a word for fear they would be hissed by the people, 
the American orators should eschew slovenliness. 
It is fitting that with the beautiful decorations, the 
sumptuous menu, and perfection of service which 
characterize our dinners, there should be felicity of 
speech. In after-dinner speaking, fittingness is ef- 
fectiveness. Elegance of speech is always charm- 
ing, but at a banquet it is particularly so. 

Entertainment as an End. — There are certain gen- 
eral principles which are helpful in making speeches 
interesting, although entertainment may not be the 
chief desideratum. The importance of making every 
speech interesting so as to insure its appeal to the 
audience has been touched upon in a previous 
chapter. The speaker who feels that his speech 
may fail to interest will do well to ask himself the 
following questions : Is it vital ? Does it contain 



AFTER-DINNER SPEAKING -^1 

elements of surprise and suspense? Are the illus- 
trations well chosen? 

Vitality. — A speech will be vital if it appeals to 
those fundamental motives that underlie all human 
character : love of family, of home, of country ; self- 
preservation ; gain or ambition; or, if it treats of 
courage, ability, unseljfishness, or any of the qualities 
which men like to fancy are exemplified in them- 
selves. A direct personal style and specific rather 
than general language go far toward giving the 
spoken word that vitality which penetrates the 
hearer's mind with the force of a special message. 

Surprise and Suspense. — The elements of surprise 
and suspense are the fundamentals of humor. It is 
the unexpected word or the unusual situation in 
infinite combination or variation that sets us off 
into peals of laughter. It is uncertainty of the out- 
come that holds us breathless through the well- 
written short story. Conflict wins attention. When 
the speaker turns to narration for purposes of illus- 
tration he should remember that suspense is the 
quality most essential to efifectiveness, and if he is 
working for a humorous climax, that it must come 
as a surprise. 

Illustrations.— Illustrations, whether humorous or 
merely illuminative, should receive careful attention, 
to the end that they may really illustrate. There is 
such a wealth of material at the command of an 
observant person that there is little excuse for the 
obvious "chestnuts" or anything offensive to good 



52 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

taste. Half of the story is in the telling, a gift to 
which some are born. Everyone, however, should 
be able to tell a good story creditably. Many of the 
failures are due to lack of preparation, to the omis- 
sion or misplacing of some important word, to lack 
of pause or emphasis, or poor judgment in selecting 
and arranging the points. Know your story, prac- 
tice it until the pauses and inflections come as natu- 
rally as the words, and tell it directly to some person 
in the audience. 



Chapter VIII 
SPEAKING IN BUSINESS 

Its Uses. — Elsewhere in this book is offered some 
testimony regarding the opportunities for efficient 
speakers in the business field, and the possibilities 
of leadership that are opened to the man who can 
influence his fellows. Both for employer and em- 
ployee is the power of speaking effectively a busi- 
ness asset of great importance. Examine a few of 
the problems which occur regularly in the day's 
work, such as : 

1. Settling disputes between employer and em- 

ployees ; 

2. Getting better results or fairer treatment; 

3. Hiring; 

4. Selling goods or services ; 

5. Presenting reports or plans. 

In every one of these instances the ability of the 
speaker to influence the other party and carry his 
point should result in direct monetary return in 
addition to the increased mental power which re- 
sults from each demonstration of efficiency. Since 
practically all business relations are those of buying 
and selling or exchange, the problem becomes how 

53 



54 EXl^EMPORANfiOUS SPEAKING 

to influence men to give up something they pos- 
sess in return for whatever you have to give them. 

Two Methods. — Business men recognize and em- 
ploy, sometimes separately but often in combina- 
tion, two methods of influencing men. The first is 
Reason; the second is Suggestion. Salesmanship 
and Advertising rest alike on these two principles. 
Both have their adherents and constitute studies in 
themselves. 

The method of Reason involves an appeal to the 
hearer's judgment by means of arguments designed 
to impress upon him the advantages which will 
accrue from accepting the speaker's proposition. 
The person to be influenced is encouraged to weigh 
and to compare, to balance, the various courses 
open to him, and the success of the plea depends 
upon the speaker's arguments being so convincing 
as to outweigh in the hearer's judgment the alter- 
native propositions. 

On the other hand, the method of Suggestion 
avoids rousing the judgment to action, and appeals 
directly to the will, from which it hopes to secure 
an immediate response. 

Both methods have many advocates in the busi- 
ness world, but the use of one in no way precludes 
the use of the other, and a skilful blending of the 
two may frequently be used successfully when 
either would have failed alone. 

Walter Dill Scott, in his book, "Influencing Men 
in Business," makes the following analysis of the 
comparative value of the two methods: 



SPEAKING IN BUSINESS . 55 

"Argument is to be preferred — 

1. When exploiting any new thing; 

2. When exploiting anything having unusual talk- 

ing points (cheapness, novelty, economy, 
etc.) ; 

3. When it is the exclusive form of persuasion; 

4. In influencing professional buyers ; 

5. As an effective form of flattery. 

"Suggestion is preferred — 

1. When inadequate time is given for arguments ; 

2. In securing action following conviction; 

3. As a supplementary method of convincing; 

4. In dealing with the general public; 

5. In securing immediate action." 

Examples. — One has only to turn to the columns 
of our periodicals to find abundant illustration of 
the two methods in advertising. "Use Pears' Soap," 
"Ivory Soap— It Floats," and Gold Medal Flour's 
"Eventually; why not now?" are familiar types of 
the suggestive method that have been enormously 
profitable. The Angelus, and Colgate's toilet ar- 
ticles are usually advertised under the "reason why" 
method, as are usually motor cars exploiting ex- 
clusive devices. But while we find in advertising 
and salesmanship our most striking examples of 
these methods, they are none the less applicable to 
all other business problems where influencing men 
is the desideratum, and a few suggestions can be 
offered concerning their effective employment. 



56 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Effective Arguments. — The attitude of a business 
man toward a new proposition of any kind may be 
illustrated by six questions, upon which in some 
variation he must satisfy his mind before he will 
accept it. 

1. What is it? What are its special merits? How 

does it differ from what I have already 
adopted? 

2. Is it profitable? Will it yield a definite money 

return through saving of labor or material, 
increased output, advertising value, etc.? 

3. Is it possible? Can I make practical use of it? 

4. Will it gratify me personally? Will it add to 

my comfort, luxury, or advance my ambition? 

5. Is there an alternative more desirable or 

cheaper? 

6. Shall I decide favorably now, or wait a while 

and investigate further? 

Upon the complete and authoritative answering 
of these queries the solicitor must base his hope of 
making the deal. He is appealing to the judgment 
of the other party, and must supply it with com- 
plete data for arriving at a decision. His argu- 
ments will therefore be so chosen as to furnish the 
most convincing evidence along these lines. Mere 
assertion will not suffice. 

Effective Suggestion. — Dr. Scott, in the book al- 
ready quoted, holds ''that the working of suggestion 
is dependent upon the dynamic, impulsive nature of 
ideas" ; that if a clear idea can be given a man it will 



SPEAKING IN BUSINESS 57 

result in action unless the way is blocked by some 
stronger concept. The suggestion must be vivid 
and striking. It must give the effect of the poster 
in speech. It must be made with authority. The 
two kinds of authority to which men are the most 
suceptible are the say-so of friends and the con- 
sensus of public opinion. In making use of sugges- 
tion, the hearer must be approached in a friendly, 
genial spirit, not aggressively or patronizingly; and 
if the testimony of popular approval can be brought 
to bear it should be taken full advantage of. We 
constantly meet with the phrase in advertising: 

"Thousands of satisfied customers use Blank's ; 

why not you?" The same principle can be used in 
speech. 

As previously stated, since suggestion appeals 
directly to the will, anything tending to invite com- 
parison with alternatives and to involve the more 
protracted processes of reason should be excluded. 
It deals with effects, not causes. In selling food- 
stuffs by this method, the agent will endeavor to 
stir the pleasurable sensations of a pleased palate 
rather than dilate upon food values or economy. 
The distinctive feature of the suggestive method is 
that it deals with concrete pictures rather than 
reasons why. 

Study the Audience. — In an earlier chapter has 
been emphasized the importance of untiring study 
in acquiring the art of reading human nature 
quickly. To no one is this more essential than to 
the man whose livelihood depends upon his ability 



58 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

to influence men in business. Individuals and 
groups differ greatly in the degree to which they 
respond to reason and suggestion. If the speaker 
can read his audience, whether it be one or a hun- 
dred persons, he can judge which arguments are 
likely to prove most effective. Some men are ex- 
tremely responsive to suggestion : others rarely act 
unless impelled by reason. These differences can 
be quickly turned to advantage by the man who is 
skilled in recognizing them. 

The relation of psycholog}^ and efficient speaking 
to the successful conduct of business affairs is be- 
coming generally recognized, and offers an inter- 
esting and profitable field for experimental work. 



PAJRT n 



SPEECHES FOR STUDY 



THE ETHICS OF CORPORATE MANAGE- 
MENT 

CHAKLES W. ELIOT 

Parts of an address by Charles W. Eliot, L.L. D., at the 
fifty-sixth regular meeting of the Merchants Club of Chicago, 
March lo, 1906. 

That this Merchants Club should ask one whose 
occupations have been teaching science for fifteen 
years and educational administration for thirty- 
seven years to address the club on the ethics of 
corporation management is an interesting manifes- 
tation of the prodigious change which has come 
about in the course of four or five centuries — grad- 
ually until recent times, but rapidly during the last 
half century — in regard to the responsibility of dif- 
ferent classes of men for the maintenance and diffu- 
sion of sound ethical standards. A thousand years 
ago the idea of sanctity and competency for ethical 
teaching involved seclusion from the world. The 
saint was an anchorite, a monk, or a nun. In fact, 
if we go back not more than a hundred years, the 
minister or priest was preeminently the teacher of 
ethics; so that it was the business of a profession 

59 



60 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

set apart from secular affairs to uphold in the world 
the standards not only of religion but of natural 
piety and public righteousness. How different is 
the situation to-day ! You and I, and all the people 
in this country whom we may be said to represent 
or typify, are fully persuaded that the most effective 
teachers of ethics to-day are the righteous men who 
are active in all the secular affairs of the world — 
that is, in farming, manufacturing, mining, trade, 
the professions, and politics. These are the men 
who, being righteous, can best influence the people 
to piety, justice, and righteousness. These are the 
men who, being themselves unrighteous, may drag 
the people down towards depravity and sin. The 
recluse, and the religionist who separates religion 
from conduct, are losing their hold on civilized 
man ; and the only ethics that command respect are 
the ethics that guide and control men in the in- 
tensest labors and struggles of the actual world. 



It is no wonder that the ethics of corporation 
management are in some respects indeterminate, 
and therefore an urgent subject of public discussion ; 
for the invention of the business corporation itself 
is hardly more than fifty years old, and this new 
creation deals with forms of property which are 
highly novel. Indeed, all the actual forms of prop- 
erty except real estate, mortgages, promissory notes, 
chattels, and coin, are novel. It is hard for our 
generation to keep in mind how very new are most 
of the actual forms of property and all the present 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 61 

modes of doing business. All the implements and 
methods of modern industry, with corporation 
stocks and bonds, the universal cheque and cheque- 
stub, and card catalogues and ledgers beside, have 
been created within the memory of many men here 
present. Is it any wonder that the ethics of modern 
business are not yet firmly settled? The ethical 
conventions gradually agreed upon during centuries 
concerning transactions in the ancient forms of 
property have had to be extended and adapted to 
immense new forms of property and new processes 
-of production and distribution. In making these 
extensions and adaptations, legislatures and courts 
are in arrears; they have not been able to keep up 
with the onward rush of eager and adventurous 
business, particularly in this country, where in- 
dustrial and commercial enterprise is stimulated by 
a political and social freedom heretofore unknown. 



I. Capitalization. — There are usually two founda- 
tions for the capitalization of a business corporation. 
The first is the money actually paid for the property 
or plant; the second is the earning power of the 
plant and the organization. Both these foundations 
may be real and solid at any given moment, but 
both are liable to grave changes. Most plants de- 
teriorate or waste, and constantly require partial 
replacement. Earning power may be unexpectedly 
either increased or diminished by natural causes, or 

by bad management or fraud Most 

energetic corporations often need new capital. Im- 



62 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

provements of the plant and means to meet new 
needs are often so urgently demanded that the ques- 
tion how to obtain them may fairly be called a ques- 
tion of life and death for the industry or corpora- 
tion concerned. One of the open secrets of Ameri- 
can efficiency in manufacturing is the courage and 
enterprise with which the American manufacturer 
will throw away his old machinery in favor of 
better. With every such rejection capital is sacri- 
ficed. The hard-earned savings, it may be, of many 
years are suddenly thrown away, and instead new 
capital must be sought. The principles underlying 
capitalization are therefore of continuous interest in 
most industries. 

At any stage of any corporate business the ques- 
tions of capitalization and over-capitalization may 
come up; and if new capital is sought at a period 
when industries are active and the public is san- 
guine, directors or managers will be tempted to 
over-capitalization. For a corporation doing a 
strictly private business, subject to competition, and 
possessing no privileges conferred by the public^ 
over-capitalization in the form of over-issues of 
bonds and stock is largely a question of the most 
profitable use of the stock market in raising money, 
provided that the real earning power of the property 
can be got at by inquiring investors. Secrecy as 
regards earning power may give opportunities for 
deception and subsequent disaster; but, if the whole 
situation be above board, directors and investors 
may be safely left to their own devices and bargain- 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 63 

ings, since no question of public morality is 
involved. 

There are two aspects of over-capitalization which 
demand the attention of the public. In the first 
place, the several States of the Union have power to 
prevent the issue of stock not fully paid for if they 
see fit to exercise that power. As a fact, legislation 
on this subject is not uniform; and the States really 
compete with each other for the taxes which may 
be derived from corporations established within 
their respective borders. The looser States com- 
pete with the stricter by making their laws as little 
restrictive for the corporations as possible, and 
leaving the investing public to take care of itself. 
This demoralizing competition is, to say the least, 
an abandonment by some States of their true posi- 
tion as moral teachers. Secondly, over-capitaliza- 
tion is an evil because of its effect on the state of 
mind of wage-earners. Reasonable wage-earners 
are content to have ingenuity, skill, and knowledge 
in discovering resources, and organizing industries 
reap a considerable immediate reward in the case 
of new undertakings ; because they realize that the 
laboring classes, in common with the entire com- 
munity, reap advantages from all successful indus- 
trial undertakings. But they are never willing that 
established industries should issue either bonds or 
stock which are not fully paid for; because they 
believe that the wage-earners can in that way be 
compelled for all time to earn not only their own 
wages, but dividends on a stock, part of which rep- 



64 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

resents neither money ins-ested nor any contribution 
of hnman skill and labor. The alleged over-capi- 
talization of a large proportion of American in- 
dustries managed by corporations is one of the main 
causes of the existing industrial unrest. This in- 
evitable state of feeling is a fact which is to be 
taken into account in dealing with the whole ques- 
tion of expedient and righteous capitalization; be- 
cause it intensifies the conflict between capital and 
labor 

II. Promotion. — The methods used in what is 
called promotion give rise to a large part of the 
current criticism on corporation management. Far- 
sighted men, who know and apply intelligent 
methods of determining the value of new resources 
in mines, forests, transportation, and trade, and 
who have also high business credit and access to 
concentrations of movable capital, seeing a chance 
to combine several companies, or to build up a new 
company, or to undertake the development of some 
new natural resource, make a plan to carry out the 
new undertaking, and offer on the market bonds, 
preferred stock, and common stock — often in blocks 
which contain all three sorts of securities. The sum 
of the paper securities often largely exceeds the 
actual cost in money or goods of the real properties 
which underlie the undertaking. This excess repre- 
sents the hoped-for reward for skill in the discovery 
of new resources, for the risks — sometimes light, 
but often heavy — which accompany the new under- 
taking, and for the credit which is the indispensable 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 65 

ground of success in the market. If the advantages 
of the plan are obvious and the risks are conse- 
quently light, an ordinary commission on the trans- 
actions may be an adequate reward for the promo- 
tion ; but if the adventure is obviously a risky one, 
it is just that a large reward should tempt pro- 
moters to take the risk. ..... Two ethical 

principles ought, however, to govern all promoting 
schemes. In the first place, all representations con- 
cerning the immediate or future value of the bonds 
and stocks issued should be absolutely true as re- 
gards the facts stated, and moderate and reasonable 
as regards the prospects of future profit. Secondly, 
if years are going to be needed to develop the new 
enterprise, the promoters have no right to abandon 
the undertaking so soon as they have sold enough 
bonds and stock to give them an immediate return 
in commissions and rake-ofifs The con- 
scientious promoter will not quit the enterprise he 
has promoted until it is thoroughly on its feet, and 
all men can see its results and its unquestionable 
value. Large enterprises in manufacturing, mining, 
and transportation cost a great deal beside money. 
They call for imagination, courage, the power to 
forecast events, the capacity to select efficient 
agents, and credit in the money market. All these 
elements of service are entitled to their reward. 
The promoter, then, must in the first place tell the 
truth; and, secondly, he must stand by his under- 
taking until real and visible value has been put into 
all the securities he issues. As to the lying, cajoling 



66 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

promotion, which aims at getting the money of 
inexperienced or foolish persons, it is merely one 
form of the criminal offence of obtaining money on 
false pretenses. It ought always to be prosecuted 
by its victims and punished by the courts 

III. Directors. — Although the state of the law as 
to how far directors are trustees or fiduciary agents 
is somewhat hazy, there is no doubt concerning 
several principles which should govern the conduct 
of directors and determine their selection. Thus, 
all the directors of a corporation are under obliga- 
tions to give their personal attention and vigilant 
care to the business of the corporation. If damage 
result from their lack of care or inattention to duty, 
they are responsible for that damage. They are 
responsible not only for wrong-doing of their own, 
but also for inattention to the wrong-doing of 
others, and for failure to act when action was 
needed. Secondly, the directors of the corporation 
cannot shift their responsibility on to sub-commit- 
tees or officers and agents appointed by themselves, 
or be in any way excused from exercising that dili- 
gent supervision which a prudent man exercises in 
the conduct of his own affairs. It follows from this 
principle that the directors in any business corpo- 
ration ought to be men who understand the busi- 
ness of that corporation and have time to attend to 
it. Because directors should be experts in one busi- 
ness, corporations which do several kinds of busi- 
ness are generally to be distrusted 

Dummy directors and figure-head directors, whose 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 67 

names appear in from twenty to seventy boards, are 
not directors in any proper sense under the laws as 
they now stand. They do not give a reasonable 
amount of time to the service of the corporations in 
which they figure, and obviously they cannot exer- 
cise any real control over the affairs of the corpora- 
tions they nominally direct. They have wrongfully 
assumed a trust they have no power to execute. 

Every director ought to have a pecuniary invest- 
ment in his corporation which might fairly be sup- 
posed to give him a considerable individual or per- 
sonal interest in its success. He should not be 
qualified for his directorship solely by the transfer 
to him of the minimum amount of stock which the 
law requires a director to hold, but should have a 
real interest in the success of the corporation, al- 
though his serviceableness may not be proportion- 
ate to the amount of stock he holds 

Directors are so far trustees that they may not 
honorably sell the control of their corporation, 
either for their own account or for the account of a 
limited number of stockholders, without providing 
that each and every stockholder shall be allowed to 
participate in the benefits of the sale. The rights of 
all the stockholders should be guarded by their 
trustees, the directors, no matter how troublesome 
a small minority of stockholders may have made 
themselves 

IV. Publicity. — All laws which promote publicity 
as to the management of corporations, by enforcing 
the publication of clear accounts and intelligible 



68 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

statements of the condition of the corporation, help 
toward the improvement of the ethics of corpora- 
tion management. Three kinds of corporation, at 
least, should be forced to publish at brief intervals 
intelligible accounts which reveal the true state of 
the plant, the bulk of the business, the proportion 
of expenses to receipts, the salaries, and the gain or 
loss — though not all of them for quite the same 
reasons — investment and fiduciary concerns, like 
banks, trust companies, savings banks, and insur- 
ance companies ; public franchise companies in gen- 
eral ; and all great corporations which appeal fre- 
quently to the investing public. On the whole, 
there has been of late years a wise tendency to leg- 
islation which compels publication of the accounts 
of corporations in which the public obviously have 
an immediate and pressing concern ; but there have 
been occasional examples of laws expressly intended 
to prevent public accounting, or to prevent directors 
being called to account for their acts by stock- 
holders or the public. Thus, the 49th section of the 
general corporation law of New Jersey (1896) pro- 
vides that, "Any corporation formed under this act 
may purchase mines, manufactories or other prop- 
erty necessary for its business, or the stock of any 
company or companies owning, mining, manufactur- 
ing or producing materials, or other property necs- 
sary for its business, and issue stock to the amount 
of the value thereof in payment therefor, and the 
stock so issued shall be full-paid stock and not 
liable to any further call, neither shall the holder 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT G9 

thereof be liable for any further payment under any 
of the provisions of this act; and in the absence of 
actual fraud in the transaction, the judgment of the 
directors as to the value of the property purchased 
shall be conclusive." This section enables any 
board of directors, so disposed, to water their stock 
simply by declaring that water or marsh is solid 
ground. They have only to declare that the stock 
issued against their purchases is full-paid. In gen- 
eral, secret management and secret acts in im- 
portant corporations have a pernicious tendency; 
and particularly they tempt directors to malfeas- 
ance, and excite in the public mind suspicions, 
sometimes just and sometimes unjust, but always 
injurious. Legislation which prevents publicity 
is, of course, to be deprecated, in spite of 
its occasional convenience. 

In order that publicity concerning the manage- 
ment of corporations should prove a remedy for old 
abuses and a protection against new ones, there 
must exist a strong public sentiment against the 
professional and business men who assist corpora- 
tions in their efforts to defeat laws intended for the 
protection of the public, or to procure quietly modi- 
fications of existing laws in the interest of corpora- 
tions and against the interest of the public. It is 
also important that a strong public sentiment should 
be cultivated in support of public officials who 
refuse to wink at the evasion by corporations of 
statutes designed to promote the public good. The 
foundation of the belief that publicity will promote 



70 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

justice and honor in corporation management is the 
conviction in the minds of directors, public officials, 
the business community, and the press, that, on the 
whole, the mass of the people will come out on the 
side of righteousness. Publicity cannot prove a 
remedy for abuses, old or new, unless the public, 
before which the facts are to be brought, is a moral 
public. The public opinion which will reform 
abuses and suppress evils must itself be an honest 
and strenuous public opinion. 

V. Salaries. — A great abuse has of late years 
grown up in corporations which do a large business, 
or hold and use great properties — namely, the exag- 
geration of salaries and perquisites. In the first 
place, the acceptance of several salaries from dif- 
ferent companies or corporations is always to be 
distrusted, inasmuch as the underlying supposition 
ought to be that a man owes all his time and 
strength to the company which pays him an ade- 
quate salary, and that his interest should not be 
divided between different corporations or different 
services. In the next place, multiple salaries are 
injurious because they overpay the recipient. The 
huge single salaries of recent times also overpay 
their recipients. The excuse for them has been that 
in conducting a large business the right man is 
cheap at any price, and the wrong man dear at any 
price. The fallacy of this argument is that the 
exaggerated salary will not really get or keep the 
best man — indeed, is not needed in order to get or 
keep him 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 71 

The first duty of a corporation towards its em- 
ployees is to provide those external conditions 
which will promote health, cheerfulness, and vigor 
in the working people. The efficiency of any 
large body of workmen is greatly promoted by 
healthy and cheerful surroundings. What is nowa- 
days called welfare work is not a benevolence or 
a charity ; it is simple economy, common sense, and 
common humanity. It requires some small expendi- 
ture on the part of a corporation; but primarily it 
requires considerateness and an intelligent compre- 
hension of human nature. This consideration it is 
the clear duty of every corporation to give. 

Secondly, every corporation should endeavor to 
secure for its workmen freedom for the play of 
individual powers, and should keep before every 
competent workman the hope and expectation of 
improving his lot as time goes on. This means 
that the workman should be free to work zealously ; 
and it also means a scale of wages which rises with 
the age of the workman up to middle life. 

In the next place, every corporation should try 
its best to procure for all its employees steady em- 
ployment, thereby promoting satisfactory conditions 
for family life, and securing a resident laboring 
population instead of a nomad population. A nomad 
population will not be a civilized population — 
except, indeed, that youth may safely be permitted 
a few years of wandering. 

Again, every corporation should study the means 
of prolonging the earning of wages beyond the 



72 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

period of greatest efficiency. Provision for men 
who have passed their prime, but are still capable 
of the less active forms of service, all corporations 
will make that have quick consciences in regard to 
their duties to employees, or intelligent comprehen- 
sion of their own interests. Early superannuation 
is a very depressing condition in any calling. 

Further, a corporation whose business requires 
the handling of its money by numerous agents 
should provide all possible checks and guards 
against dishonesty on the part of such employees. 
A corporation that neglects such precautions will 
train thieves, instead of honest men. That the 
precautions may cost more than the thefts they 
would prevent is no excuse for not providing them. 

No corporation has a right to encourage or con- 
nive at any monopoly of the kind of labor it buys ; 
because the corporation which yields to such a 
monopoly abridges the just liberty of working men, 
and liberty is an indispensable condition of public 
and private happiness. It is another phase of the 
same principle, that no corporation should seek, by 
force or indirection, to establish a monopoly of its 
own. 

Justice and promptness in dealing with com- 
plaints is another clear duty of corporations toward 
their employees ; and so is generosity in rewarding 
valuable suggestions made by employees concern- 
ing the conduct of the business. The competent 
discharge of these duties will go far to promote 
good will between the employer and the employed ; 



CORPORATE MANAGEMENT 73 

and a steady good will in work is the great pro- 
moter of efficiency in production, and of satisfaction 
in daily work. 

The responsibility of corporations for the ethical 
training of their employees grows heavier and 
heavier in this country as corporations become 
larger and an increasing proportion of the working 
people of the country is found in the service of 
corporations. In a nation which puts every young 
man into its army or navy for two or three years, 
the army and navy can be used as schools of obedi- 
ence, neatness, politeness, fidelity, and loyalty. They 
are so used in some measure by European nations, 
though not adequately. In the United States the 
industrial army must perform this function, instead 
of a standing army and a navy; and the armies of 
industry are, on the whole, much better fitted for 
this function than the public forces trained for the 
savagery of war. Well-managed corporations can 
provide admirable discipline in courtesy, neatness, 
punctual cooperation and loyalty, if only they syste- 
matically use judicious means for giving this ethical 
training. To organize these means and use them 
habitually require forethought, wisdom, firmness, 
and good temper in corporate management; and 
these qualities in the managers should be sought 
for and paid for. No corporate expenditure could 
possibly be more productive, from the business 
point of view, or more profitable towards the im- 
provement of the national character. This is one of 
the directions in which corporate management 



74 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

should be ethical ; and no management is truly 
ethical that does not make the employees better and 
finer men and women. 

Not long ago, at a public dinner of the National 
Civic Federation, at which much had been said 
about the importance of industrial peace, I ventured 
to say, near the close of the meeting, that our busi- 
ness community certainly wanted peace between 
capital and labor, but that it should be peace with 
liberty. I remain of that opinion, believing that 
liberty with troubled peace is better for both capital 
and labor than untroubled peace without liberty. 
How can both peace and liberty be attained? There 
is only one way — through righteousness in the deal- 
ings of man with man. Truces and armed neu- 
tralities may be brought about by mutual fear, or 
by the exhaustion of the combatants; but durable 
peace comes only by justice or righteousness. When 
one has been exploring long-time evils, and has 
been trying to get down to the solid foundations 
of human happiness, one is sure to find that some 
old Hebrew writer has put the elemental philosophy 
of the whole subject into a memorable phrase. The 
ethics of corporation management will, indeed, have 
been brought to a happy issue when, as the Psalmist 
puts it, "Righteousness and peace have kissed each 
other." 



THE PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS SUCCESS 

HUGH CHALMERS 

Extracts from an address by Hugh Chalmers, president of 
the Chalmers Motor Car Co., before a company of business 
men in Detroit, Mich. 

The business man deals with five M's — money, 
materials, machinery, men, and merchandise. It is 
not so hard to get money, materials, and machinery. 
Each of these is a given quantity and with each 
and all of them a given result can be accomplished. 

The big thing is to get men. 

In the primitive days of manufacturing the great 
question was one of production. The market was 
ready, and we strived constantly for greater per- 
fection. Nowadays the great question is one of 
distribution, the getting of things from where they 
are to where they ought to be. 

The two great factors in distribution are sales- 
manship and advertising. The relationship between 
the two, in my opinion, is the closest relationship 
it is possible to have. It is closer than the team 
under a single yoke ; it is closer than friends ; it is 
closer than brothers ; yes, it is closer than the rela- 
tion between man and wife, because there can never 
be a separation or divorce. 

75 



76 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Advertising is salesmanship, and salesmanship 
is advertising. Every ad. is a salesman, and every 
salesman is an ad. There is this difference : Adver- 
tising is salesmanship plus publicity; salesmanship 
is advertising plus getting the order signed. Ad- 
vertising creates the atmosphere of business, and 
the salesman follows and takes the orders. 

It is hard to analyze the successful salesman, 
but, after all, the analysis gets down really to the 
question of personality. 

There are certain qualities I have been asked to 
give here to-night which I believe we should have 
in business to be successful. We are all salesmen ; 
every man is trying to sell his own good qualities 
to his fellow-citizens. That is why he puts on a 
clean collar and a clean shirt and everything that 
goes with it, because he wants to sell his good 
qualities. 

The first essential is to be healthy, to have health. 
Most of us are paid for having good livers, but 
unfortunately some have bad ones. There is nothing 
helps a man so much as to take care of himself. 
Most of us have injurious habits; we smoke too 
much, we eat too much, or we drink too much; we 
are handicapped in that way. I know men with 
good minds, but their bodies are not healthy, and 
I would rather take my chances with a healthy 
mind in a healthy body. 

The next quality is honesty. I do not refer to it 
in the baser sense, because a man is a fool nowa- 
days unless he is absolutely honest. There is an 



BUSINESS SUCCESS 77 

old maxim, "Honesty is the best policy/* There is 
nothing *'best" about it; honesty is the only policy. 
Most men I have met have two arms, two legs, 
two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth, and, con- 
sidering their height, they weigh about the same. 
What is the difference in men? Power, ability: 
Some people may have that developed more than 
others, but I say nine-tenths, yes, ninety-nine-hun- 
dredths could develop ability. 

I find just three kinds of men in this world: The 
kind you tell once to do a thing, and you can bet 
your life it is done. The second class you have to 
tell four or five or a dozen times to do it because 
they do not think. The third class is the great 
class of men who have made this country what it 
is — men with initiative ; men who do things, who do 
things before you have a chance to tell them what 
to do. We must do things quickly; we must have 
initiative, and that is the greatest quality a man 
can possess. I would rather have a man in my 
employ who could do six out of ten things right 
than a fellow who did four things right and never 
did anything else. There is nothing wrong in mak- 
ing a mistake ; the only wrong is in making the 
same one twice. 

Next to that I think a man ought to have a thor- 
ough knowledge of his business. I was at a con- 
vention in Berlin, Germany, of two hundred sales- 
men. They did not understand anything I said and 
I did not understand anything they said, and we got 
along all right. There was a man there who had 



78 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

carried off the banner of four successive years, and 
as we were distributing the prizes I said to him : 
"Mr. Hoffman, will you tell the men why you have 
been leader for four years in succession?" He could 
not have given a better answer than he gave. He 
said : "Gentlemen, I defy anybody in Germany to 
ask a question about my business I cannot answer." 
That was the secret of his success; he knew his 
business. 

Another quality we need is tact. Tact ! What is 
tact? That ability — although it is rare — that en- 
ables one man to deal with other men of different 
temperaments in the right way and get along with 
all of them. Some people mistake tact for "jolly." 
Tact is not so much what a man says, but how he 
says it. You men who are writing letters to travel- 
ing men and other people — those hot words you 
dictate become cold type when received. A man 
gets exactly what you say and reads it that way. 
Let us be careful about the letters we write ; let us 
develop this quality of tact. 

The next thing we ought to have is industry; the 
man you always find on the job, who does a good 
day's work — but it is unnecessary to talk to western 
men about work, because it is the western man who 
occupies the highest positions in New York, Boston, 
and other eastern centers, for if you will investigate 
you will find western men in seven-tenths of those 
positions, because they were taught to work in the 
west, and they carried that quality with them to the 
east. 



b 



BUSINESS SUCCESS 79 

Now, then, sincerity is a quality we ought to 
possess. Next to being honest and able, we ought 
to be sincere men. Sincerity is that quality which 
not only makes friends, but holds them. A man 
cannot be insincere without injury to himself. 
Whether you are talking to one man or a thousand, 
whether you are talking to me or to a customer, 
you are throwing thoughts to his brain; you can- 
not see them, but they are tangible, and you can- 
not throw insincere thoughts to the brain and not 
have the brain catch insincere thoughts. No more 
than I could throw this glass to you and you catch 
a pitcher. It is not changed or transformed; it 
comes to you in the way it leaves me. So I say we 
must perfect this quality of sincerity if we are to 
attain success. You know men in whom you abso- 
lutely believe because they are sincere. You say 
you like a man you can believe in because he can 
sell the goods. Insincerity has taken some orders, 
but it has never held a job. 

We should be willing to ask for and receive sug- 
gestions. The man who knows it all is like the 
fellow standing on the street w^th the fool-killer 
waiting just around the corner. None of us know 
it all. We might be up to date at 6 o'clock, but 
unless we are up to date right now we don't know 
it all. I have made it a rule to be willing to accept 
suggestions, and I would as soon be stopped in 
the hall by the janitor as by the general manager, 
because the chances are ten to one that the janitor 



80 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

knows more about the business he wants to talk 
about than the general manager. 

In addition to all of tliese things mentioned, a 
man must have enthusiasm. Unless he has enthu- 
siasm he is a mere statue. Because enthusiasm is 
the white heat that fuses all of these qualities into 
one effective mass. I would not give a cent for a 
man without enthusiasm. If a man has no enthu- 
siasm he is no good. If you ever get enough money 
so you could do so you don't want to retire. Men 
v/ho retire from business do not live as long as 
those who do not. What we want to do is to have 
our business in such shape that we can get some 
pleasure and play out of it as well as work. Let us 
enjoy our work, and let us alternate business and 
pleasure. We must keep up enthusiasm if we want 
to keep out of a rut. The only difference between 
a rut and a grave is in the width and the depth. 
We graduate from one to the other. 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 

M. T. FRISBIE 

Excerpts from an address delivered before the Poor Richard 
Club of Philadelphia, April 7, 1910, by M. T. Frisbie, adver- 
tising manager L. C. Smith & Bros. Typewriter Co., of Syra- 
cuse, N. Y. 

A Story is told of how Sir Walter Besant once 
accepted an invitation to speak at a meeting in 
London upon "The Secret of Success in Fiction 
Writing." Among the platform committee was 
James Payn, the canny Scotch story writer and 
critic. 

Just as Sir Walter rose to his feet, prepared to 
initiate his audience into all the mysteries of his 
profession, he felt a tug at his coat tails. Looking 
around, he beheld Payn, pale but determined. 

'"What is it, Jimmy?" he asked. 

"For God's sake, Walter, you're not going to tell 
them how we do it?" 

Now, don't any of you go pulling at my coat 
tails, for I'm not presumptuous enough to think I 
can unfold to you the hidden secret of success in 
advertising 

The Unknown Quantities in advertising, about 
which I shall speak, would, if advertising were an 
exact science, soon be resolved — through equation, 

81 



82 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

proporiion, and elimination — into tangible, estimable 
factors. 

But advertising being, as yet, not a science — only 
an art — we are obliged to cut and try, to feel our 
way, to follow our intuitions, and then thank our 
lucky stars, if, after spending the last dollar of our 
hard-wrung appropriation, we find ourselves within 
a thousand miles of the goal. 

Some day, when the psychologists and the black- 
smiths, the fifty-thousand dollar copy-men, and the 
circulation-affidavit makers have all completed their 
perfect work, there may be a "Science and Art of 
Advertising" that can be mastered by the student 
in college, or by the hard-working mechanic who 
takes his dose of correspondence school, after he has 
washed up, at home, evenings. 

But don't worry, for what happens then will not 
interest us. 

One of the most important of these unknown 
quantities, because it is vital to many of us adver- 
tisers, is the value of our general publicity. 

Now, in its application to a particular business, 
can its actual worth be determined? Ability to 
estimate this value accurately would be of untold 
importance. Must it always go unmeasured — un- 

reckoned? 

Within the past few months national advertisers 
have been asked by magazine publishers for data 
relative to the number of replies, under first-class 
postage, received from advertisements in given 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 83 

issues of their publications. Many were unable to 
rnake a definite statement. 

What is the value of your publicity advertising 
in any given newspaper or magazine? Can you 
answer? 

Yet, without some means of judging this value, 
satisfactory at least to us, what warrant have you 
and I to continue spending our firms' money for 
such publicity? 

We cannot even fall back on the theory that all 
advertising, like whiskey, is good advertising, but 
some is better, for we are painfully aware that not 
all advertising is good, and some is worse. 

Still we go on burning the midnight oil to pro- 
duce our general publicity copy and blindly trust, 
as Tennyson puts it : 

"That, somehow, good 
Will be the final goal of ill." 

And in the faith that this confidence is not en- 
tirely misplaced, we find great comfort and con- 
solation. 

A case in point. 

When the Smith Brothers withdrew from the 
Union Typewriter Company, built a factory and 
produced a new high-grade writing machine in 
record time — a record, by the way, that yet stands — 
it became the duty of your speaker to break the 
news to the public. 

Now it is not to be supposed the dear public was 
lying awake o' nights in its anxiety to hear that a 
promising youngster had been added to the type- 
writer family. But this is what happened : 



84 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

A full page display, rather clumsily put together 
(in fact, it got more than a page roast on the griddle 
of Judicious Advertising), appeared in three 
monthly magazines, of national importance, with 
corresponding space in two national weeklies, 
simply announcing the fact that h. C. Smith & 
Bros, were now making typewriters, but couldn't, 
as yet, fill orders at all rapidly. 

And this item of general publicity was productive 
of replies at a cost of less than seventy-five cents 
apiece — a result that has not since been duplicated, 
and probably never will be duplicated in the history 
of the business. 

This phenomenally low inquiry-cost was prob- 
ably partially due to an information campaign, 
which, by means of an extensive mailing-list, had 
been conducted for several months prior to the 
final announcement. The campaign consisted of a 
series of news articles in Syracuse papers, often 
illustrated by cuts showing the progress of work, 
and designed to keep up public interest. 

But these by themselves had not served to bring 
the replies in such a flood. It was the publicity 
announcement that turned the trick 

Having settled the matter of mediums to the best 
of our ability, there is one thing we can do to 
increase the value of our General Publicity Adver- 
tising, and that is to make it alive, instructive — 
vitally instinct with the merits of our goods. 

"Pears Soap." That was the original form of 
pure publicity — just "Pears Soap" in big type and a 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 85 

loud voice. "Have You Used Pears Soap?" came 
next. That was better. But after a hundred years 
of this conservative form of advertising we begin 

occasionally to see "Use Pears Soap, because " 

and that is the best of all. 

For there is no good argument why pure pub- 
licity copy should not also be reason-why copy — in 
fact, the argument is all the other way, provided 
the reason is so briefly set forth that he who runs 
may read, and so pertinently that the quality or 
peculiarity which constitutes the reason may be 
identified in the mind's eye with the product itself. 
"It floats" and "99;^ pure," from the Proctor & 
Gamble copy, are examples 

Another Unknown Quantity, with which we pur- 
chasers of advertising space have almost daily to 
deal, lies hidden in the claims which publishers 
make or decline to make regarding circulation. 

Those of you who buy space are familiar with 
the two kinds of solicitors. One, who says, in a 
confidential whisper: 

"You know what these big circulation claims 
amount to — figured before the newsdealers' Re- 
turns' are in. But ^Canned Brains' isn't a news stand 
publication. It has a gilt-edged subscription list 
and goes paid-in-advance direct to the homes of 
just the kind of people who can afiford to buy your 
." Well, I see you have heard the rest of it. 

Then in comes the next solicitor with a swagger 
and a copy of the "Big Noise" under his arm. 

"How does that strike you?" he asks, in a voice 



86 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

that carries to the next block, "Red last month, 
blue this, purple next. See it on the stand a block 
away. More full pages of advertising than any 
other one of the Big Six. Circulation gaining at 
the rate of a thousand a day." 

You are properly impressed, but venture to in- 
quire what the circulation is. 

"Look at our rate. A dollar a page per thousand 
copies actually printed and distributed — figure it 
yourself." 

Now, as this rate has consistenly held at, let us 
say $500.00, year in and year out, in times of plenty 
and through the lean years as well, and as that 
seems to be the only consistent thing about it (no, 
I am naming no names, and I don't mean the maga- 
zine you think, anyway), you are inclined to wonder, 
as between your whispering friend and your noisy 
one, which, if either, is entitled to full credence. 



Personally I am much inclined to be nearly as 
gun-shy of both these classes of solicitors as I am 
of one who says : 

"We won't open our books to every Tom, Dick, 
and Plarry, Vv^ho use only an inch or so of our 
space each month, but if you want any specific 
information, our entire office is at your disposal." 

Of course that sounds well, and is flattering to a 
degree. But suppose you were in the small adver- 
tiser's place. Wouldn't you, too, want to know what 
you were buying with your money? 

What is the answer? 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 87 

It is for advertisers to find out. 

Does it lie in making all contracts with a rebate 
clause ? We got back a nice bunch of dollars from 
Collier's last year because their circulation didn't 
quite average up to the figure on which their adver- 
tising rate was based. I don't know just how much 
that policy cost Collier's, but when their solicitor 
comes in he gets one of the cigars that I keep in the 
far pigeon-hole. 

Be not misled by circulation claims, but put your 
trust in the vigorous character of the publication 
that has a policy and stands for something — not 
your policy, perhaps — but, nevertheless, an earnest 
appeal to a living constituency. 

And right along with this circulation problem 
comes the allied problem of duplication 

I have some doubt as to the advantage of dupli- 
cation, particularly when uniform copy is used. 

Of course its supporters will quote the proverb, 
"A continual dropping wears away the stone," but 
I can reply Avith the assertion by another author — 
the foremost advertiser of his age and time — *'A 
continual dropping of a very rainy day and a con- 
tentious woman are alike." And who will say that 
Solomon was not well qualified to make the com- 
parison? 



This subject is one that will bear looking into 
by the advertiser who is obliged to make his appro- 
priation last as long and go as far as possible. 

Mahin's carefully computed tables give the total 
number of families in the United States with an 



88 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

income of more than $900.00 a year as less than six 
and a quarter millions. 

With incomes of $1,200.00 a year and over, less 
than four and a quarter million families. 

With incomes of $3,000.00 and over, only 976,000 
families. 

Now, taking an expensive automobile proposi- 
tion, for instance, the possible appeal must be posi- 
tively limited to less than one million families with 
only a small percentage of that number as probable 
purchasers. 

With million and half-million claimed circula- 
tions, numerous as they are to-day, what must be 
the waste in bird-shot of the automobile advertiser 
who uses, let us say, one of the big weeklies with 
its million more or less, four leading monthlies 
(over a million), and enough of the smaller ones to 
aggregate at least a million more? 

Yet the automobile manufacturer prospers — and 
so for a time under similar prodigality did the 
bicycle manufacturer back in the nineties 

The figures of the last census show in round num- 
bers seventeen and one-half million families in the 
United States. A circulation of one million means 
one family in every seventeen. Subtract the day- 
laborer, the negro, the foreign-speaking, and the 
illiterate classes, and a million circulation means 
reaching about one family in ten 

But with the magazine reading public limited to 
about ten million families and the combined circu- 
lation of the standard and unstandard magazines 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 89 

amounting to — whatever it may — tell me, if you can, 
how the advertiser who uses "all the big ones" is 
going to avoid a very serious problem in duplica- 
tion. 

I will give you the benefit of one of our own 
experiences. Like many another valuable idea, we 
stumbled upon it while in search of something else. 

We were using vertical half-pages, on twelve- 
time order, and getting outside lefthand position 
(when wc could), but felt we were not making as 
much of a splash as we wanted to. All this oc- 
curred at a time when there was little chance for 
an increased appropriation. I asked in my good 
friend, Harry Porter, of the Frank Presbrey Com- 
pany, for a conference, and we determined to use 
three-fourths-page space, which would give us more 
room for display, and run the copy fewer times, 
but alternatively, in the various publications, so 
that we should still have a certain amount of repre- 
sentation each month. 

In "staggering" our list, we endeavored to ar- 
range a schedule for the alternate appearances of 
our copy with the least possible disadvantage. For 
instance, Everybody's and Cosmopolitan were off- 
set; McClure's and American; Collier's and Satur- 
day Evening Post, and so on down the line. 

Thus we turned to our advantage the inevitable 
duplication of mediums of a certain class, slightly 
enlarged our list, obtained greater space for dis- 
play, and, though this may sound paradoxical, were 
given reason to believe, both from inquiries re- 



90 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

ceived and general business done (our only means 
of judging), that we had not failed to reach as 
many interested readers as under the old plan when 
our advertisement appeared every month in each 
publication. 

I know this sort of talk will be considered treason 
by the publishers, but the facts are as I have 
stated. It has been suggested to me that this 
course might not be advisable for a concern just 
beginning to advertise. That is possibly true, but 
in our case the result seems to have been more ex- 
tensive publicity and more effective publicity at no 
greater cost 

The agency representative assures us that ''the 
big ones are the best pullers," and if our line was 
one that appealed, like an article of diet, to all 
humanity, we could not controvert his statement. 
But when we ask him, "Shall we, then, select one 
medium of mammoth circulation and expend our 
entire appropriation in a series of two-page spreads 
therein?" he hesitates. 

Why? 

Because he knows and realizes also that we 
know the utter uselessness of attempting to in- 
terest in typewriters in any way more than a 
quarter of the readers of the big popular mediums, 
and that consequently three-quarters of our appro- 
priation would, in such a case, be spent in purchas- 
ing at the highest rate publicity of a character which 
could benefit us only by the most remote possibility. 

What can we as advertisers do, then? We are 



THE UNKNOWN QUANTITIES 91 

obliged to hedge, make additions to the list of a 
bunch of purely class mediums, every one of whose 
readers may be a possible purchaser. 

From which do we get the greater returns in 
proportion to the money spent? 

It is possible that advertisers will be forced to 
seek, and may perhaps find, their remedy in the use 
of a judiciously selected list of class periodicals 
of lesser circulation but more certain appeal to 
probable users of their particular lines. 

In what has been said I have endeavored merely 
to state some of the difficult problems that con- 
front us as advertising men. I will not presume to 
offer a solution. But they are problems that each 
of us must wrestle with in his own way and, out 
of his own hard experience, establish a working 
hypothesis that will suffice until advertising, as a 
science, has made further progress. 



COMPARATIVE ADVERTISING METHODS- 
EAST AND WEST 

HUGH A. o'dONNELL 

Excerpte from an address by Mr. Hugh A. O'Donnell, busi- 
ness manager "The Philadelphia Press," delivered at the 
Poor Richard Club House, Philadelphia, Thursday, March 
3, 1910. 

Whatever I have to say regarding the compara- 
tive newspaper advertising values of the East and 
West must naturally be the result of first impres- 
sion, and I run the risk of being seriously inac- 
curate. However, your city and people and news- 
papers have proven exceedingly interesting to me 
and the outsider's point of view may appeal to you 
as clarifying if not informative. At any rate, it is 
sincere 

Advertising is both an art and a science, and it is 
the art part that makes it an undefined science. 
There is just as much personal element in adver- 
tising as there is in salesmanship. Indeed, adver- 
tising in the usual sense is nothing more than sales- 
manship on paper addressed to a composite cus- 
tomer. It is an individual proposition in its prin- 
ciples, and that is why experience is its only teacher, 
unless it happens to be an intuition like any other 
talent. Nine-tenths of all talk on advertising is 

93 



9-1 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

futile because it is necessarily so general it is not 
applicable to more than one advertiser. We all 
grant publicity is the key to commercial success, 
but there are as many keys as there are successes, 
and there is no passkey of publicity to it. Each 
merchant must make his own, and he must keep 
ever trying and making and changing until he has 
made one that fits best his door to success. He 
alone can tell when he has done it, though he can*t 
be always certain as to just how he did it. It's the 
trying that hurts and costs and teaches. 

Contrary to the usual analysis, there is undoubt- 
edly more money wasted in advertising than in 
any other investment, since it is the first and chief 
item of expense in nearly all business promotions. 
Under modern development there is expended on 
advertising over $800,000,000 annually. It has made 
thtj luxuries of yesterday the necessities of to-day. 
Operating on well-established psychological laws, 
it has become the great positive, creative force in 
business. It makes men want things never before 
deemed necessary to their happiness or content- 
ment. And so it is, advertising that pays must at- 
tract attention, then convince, then persuade, and 
it is just that system of creating desire that has 
made two blades of grass grow in the business world 
where only one grew before. There is no good in 
unknown good. The man who knows most can 
accomplish most. Advertising knowledge is mostly 
a knowledge of people. All mediums of publicity 
are merely the channels through which advertising 



ADVERTISING METHODS 95 

flows. The message delivered is the real advertis- 
ing. And it must be applied to be other than 
theory. "You can learn to make chemical analysis 
from books and experiments; you can measure the 
distance to Jupiter and weigh the water in the 
ocean by methematics ; but there is something about 
folks which is beyond figures." It is the reaching 
out of the human to the human. Sometimes it's 
the little things that count. Colgate says his talcum 
powder is so good it can't be improved. He, there- 
fore, advertises the improved box. A railroad ad- 
vertises that its passenger trains start and stop 
without jar or jolt. All things equal, a small point 
will turn trade. To tell these little things cost big 

mone}^ but it is worth it 

It is the same kind of word of mouth advertising 
backed by the usual printed statements that is the 
acme of great publicity. One pleased customer will 
tell ten and thus sales are perpetuated, business 
built and trade-marks made worth millions. And 
yet there is nothing cheaper than good advertising. 
Take, for instance, the circulation of a Philadelphia 
paper. There are probably 50,000 out of 165,000 
readers who can spend an average of $200 a year in 
each of twenty-five stores in town. That means a 
quarter of a billion dollars, and yet for $10 you can 
buy fifty lines of space in that paper. That means 
casting bread on the water and having it come back 
buttered. You can chuck into fifty lines a message 
of probably 200 words to 165,000 possible buyers. 
That is a good many patrons to address, and in 



96 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

200 words, well chosen, much can be said to the 
point. The whole story of the creation was told in 
less than four times that many. 

It is difficult to compare Chicago and Philadel- 
phia in regard to newspapers. Conditions are so 
different 

There is nothing free in Chicago. The largest 
user of display space pays just as promptly for the 
smallest classified ad. as you do for the collar you 
buy from the clothier after you have purchased a 
suit of clothes from him. No one ever asks the 
newspaper for a free reading notice out there. The 
newspapers used to write-up State Street stores at 
Christmas time, photographing the windows, etc., 
but the merchants themselves asked to have it 
stopped. While they admitted Marshall Field was 
the leading mercantile house of the city, there was 
always a disagreement as to who was second. If 
Mandels was named second, the others were dis- 
pleased ; and if Carson, Pirie, Scott was mentioned 
second in order, Mandels felt slighted; and if any 
cheap store was mentioned on the same page with 
Charles A. Stevens & Bros, that exclusive house 
became incensed. They all could be best pleased 
by pleasing no single one. And that is good judg- 
ment. The reporter sent out to review the store 
openings in the spring will use the same adjective 
superlative for the cheapest as well as the most 
exclusive store, and as these articles are run side 
by side it becomes ludicrous from the merchant's 
standpoint, a prostitutional pander on the news- 



ADVERTISING METHODS 97 

paper's part and an insult to the reader. Besides, 
on the basis that business is business, why, for in- 
stance, should a merchant think he should have 
free at times what sells for, say $1.00 a line, simply 
because he buys space at 20 cents a line? The 
woman who buys a half-dollar's worth of cheap 
candy doesn't expect a $2.00 box of bon-bons thrown 
in because of the 50-cent cash purchase. And the 
merchant who pays a higher rate than the minimum 
because he doesn't buy enough space to earn the 
lower rate surely has less right. I think the day 
will come when an honest newspaper will refuse to 
sell its news columns at any price on the same basis 
as it protects its editorial integrity to-day. 

And then as to position. There is a sort of fight 
for the back page of the papers in Chicago, but that 
is given on the basis of the quantity of space bought 
any one day. It is a contest among the merchants 
themselves, and one of them will use ten to twelve 
columns in order to be sure of having seven of them 
go on the back page. But no favor is asked of the 
newspaper. Indeed, it is not easy to buy position, 
as the newspaper justly argues that one position is 
good as another in a fair medium, and it does not 
wish to be hampered because of a few dollars in the 
proper making of the schedule. A newspaper's first 
duty is to its subscribers, and nothing should be 
done even in the unbalanced arrangement of a paper 
that might offend their sense of beauty. That the 
back page is valuable in an evening paper on the 
supposition that it is mostly read on street cars 



98 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

will not bear analysis and certainly does not war- 
rant the effort made to get it by the advertiser. This 
is doubly true of morning papers, which go directly 
into the homes. 

As for the Chicago Daily News, its independence 
is so extreme, despite the fact it charges extra for 
position, electros and illustrations — it closes its clas- 
sified columns almost twenty-four hours before pub- 
lication, and as for display advertisements, first 
come, first served, and nothing guaranteed. I know 
a State Street store that argued for three hours 
one night trying to get the Daily News to guarantee 
its full page ad. would appear in the next evening's 
edition. The rules governing such promises were 
so rigid nothing could be done until Mr. Lawson, 
the owner, was reached at a club late in the night. 
The Daily News rate is the highest in Chicago, 
but its circulation reads its advertisements and the 
returns therefrom make it the cheapest investment 
for the merchant. 

All concessions there in regard to free readers, 
position, etc., are considered equivalent to a cut of 
rate, and the newspaper which doesn't rigidly 
adhere to its rate card has a severe case of heart 
trouble that may prove fatal any time. The rate 
card is the bible of the newspaper business, and 
when you deviate from it you are getting away 
from revealed religion. Every advertiser should be 
privileged to the same rate as an}^ other advertiser 
on the same conditions. 

Good will is the real asset of any first-class paper, 



ADVERTISnJG METHODS 99 

and no newspaper is justified in doing anything to 
discount its integrity. The success of a paper is 
built on the confidence of its readers, and respect- 
able and conscientious publishers endeavor to ac- 
cept only such advertising as they can indorse to 
the subscriber. It is doubtful if the following of 
such ideals is appreciated. A clergyman in Min- 
neapolis switched his advertising to a competing 
newspaper because he didn't consider enough edi- 
torial notice had been given his lectures by the 
newspaper which had thrown out $25,000 worth of 
objectionable advertising. Virtue is not always re- 
warded. 

In one year the Chicago Tribune refused $80,000 
worth of questionable advertising. At another time, 
for eighteen months, the same paper refused $40,000 
worth of advertising from a merchant who insisted 
on preferred position at the expense of his com- 
petitors — although his business was running in the 
other Chicago papers during that time. 

You know circulation value really means quan- 
tity and quality added together and divided by 
two. The answer is the average, and the higher it 
is the more productive the circulation. Chicago 
emphasizes quality — not in the "class" sense, but 
circulation, which reaches the best people of all 
classes, whether those engaged in trades or in 
finance. Ten men with only a dollar a piece can 
only buy the bare necessities of life, but a single 
man with a ten-dollar bill has more purchasing 
power than the ten men in the aggregate because 



100 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

he is in the position to buy the comforts of life 
which make profitable merchandise. The Chicago 
Tribune refuses to state its circulation, declaring 
space is sold on a basis of the selling power of a 
newspaper. It is unsound and unwise, they claim, 
to buy space on "so much per thousand of circu- 
lation," because the circulation of one newspaper 
may include the wastrels and derelicts of society 
and that of another paper ma}^ be among the ear- 
nest, honest, saving people in every walk of life. 
Personally, I think the argument is settled when the 
quality of circulation is well established and the 
quantity is published at the top of the editorial page 
every day. In the constantly reiterated statement 
of the amount of circulation and nothing else made 
by newspapers deficient in selling power is found 
the only plausible reason for inducing advertisers 
to spend "money in large sums for space in thin 
sheets." After all, in the final analysis, a news- 
paper has only one kind of merchandise to sell, and 
that is news — general news — the history of the 
day — and merchandise news or advertising. The 
newspaper having the most real news of the right 
sort will attract the most readers of discrimination 
and quality and, therefore, the reader is the only 
one who counts. A newspaper which becomes a 
misnomer and tries to feed the advertiser by free 
publicity instead of being the advertiser's feeder, 
reminds me of the old negro down South who was 
taken sick. A nurse put a fever thermometer under 
his tongue. The doctor called later and said: 



ADVERTISING METHODS 101 

"Howdy, Mose. How are you feeling?" "Ah'm 
feelin* a sight better, sah," said the negro. "Have 
you had any nourishment," said the physician? 
"Yes, sah," said the darkey, "a lady came in heah 
an' give me a piece of glass to suck." It is a sort 
of a "compliments of the season" proposition as de- 
livered by Pat. "Sure," said Patrick, rubbing his 
hands with delight at the prospects of a Christmas 
box, "I always mane to do me duty." "I believe 
you," replied his employer, "and therefore I shall 
make you a present of all you have stolen from me 
during the year." "Thank ye', yur honor," replied 
Pat, "and may all your friends and acquaintances 
trate you as liberally." 

While Philadelphia merchants may seem least dis- 
posed to promptly act on business facts compared 
with the Westerner and appear to lean towards sen- 
timent, tradition and impression, yet there is seem- 
ingly more intimacy between them and the news- 
papers than anywhere on earth. The papers here 
give the merchant more cooperation in free pub- 
licity, cuts, drawings, etc., than can be gotten else- 
where, and the merchants seem to generously re- 
ciprocate. 

Philadelphia was the first city in America to have 
and develop great newspapers. Practically every 
first-class newspaper in the United States buys its 
Sunday Woman's and Color Sections from the 
Philadelphia papers. There is scarcely an adver- 
tising writer in the land who is not keen to study 
and learn from the newspaper advertisements of 



102 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

John Wanamaker, Strawbridge & Clothier and Gim- 
bel Brothers. Philadelphia has more newspapers 
of a higher average of excellence than any city East 
or West. This city sets the standard of newspaper 
values everywhere for what is best in the business 
of journalism. It is the hub of the universe in the 
newspaper line. There are better advertising writers 
and more big users of newspaper space in Phila- 
delphia through the great department stores than 
anywhere in America, and that means the world. 
There is not one Chicago merchant who runs a 
page every week day in the year in any newspaper 
there. New York is scarcely any better ofif. But 
here there are three or four merchants running a 
daily page in as many different newspapers. It is 
without a parallel. 

I grant there is no place on earth where display 
rates are as low., considering results, as in Phila- 
delphia. And fifteen cents a line is cheap classified 
space. But competition is closer here than else- 
where, and the papers themselves are of almost 
equal merit. But no city in America, population 
considered, compares with Philadelphia in the num- 
ber and capacity of its enterprising stores. Those 
stores have made possible great newspapers, and 
the newspapers in return have created and devel- 
oped those immense commercial institutions. And 
Philadelphia, the city of readers, thinkers and doers, 
has become celebrated for the energy of its mer- 
chants and the enterprise of its newspapers and just 
loyalty — makes it sacrilegious to take the name of 
any other city in vain for comparison. 



VANADIUM STEELS 

LOUIS BRADFORD 

A speech by an engineering student in the class of extem- 
poraneous speaking at Swarthmore College. 

If a piece of steel is repeatedly loaded to a point 
somewhere near the elastic limit, it is found that 
failure eventually occurs. The load causing rup- 
ture under these conditions is found to be much 
less than that which the steel could support if it 
had been applied only once. It is, indeed, usually 
less than the load required to give the specimen a 
permanent set. This phenomenon is known to en- 
gineers as the ''Fatigue of Metals," and is one of the 
most difficult problems the designer has to face. 
The effect of fatigue is very noticeable in auto- 
mobile races. Machines frequently have to with- 
draw from the race owing to the crank-shaft, axle, 
or other essential member having broken. 

All these parts are designed with liberal factors 
of safety and with ordinary usage would have lasted 
indefinitely. The repeated application of the sudden 
stress incidental to racing, however, causes failure, 
although these stresses are within the elastic limit 
of the material. The effect of these failures on the 
design of machines is that dimensions of parts sub- 
ject to repeated loading, whether shock or other- 

103 



104 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

wise, have become excessive and greatly increase 
the cost and weight of the machine. 

Fatigue of metals is caused by the fact that a metal 
is not homogeneous. Steel, for instance, is com- 
posed of crystals, some comparatively weak, others 
comparatively strong. When a load comes upon a 
section the weakest crystals fail partially along its 
cleavage planes. Complete failure does not occur. 
If the load is repeated, the parts of the weakened 
crystal move still more, along its cleavage planes. 
If loading is continued, the crystal finally fails com- 
pletely, and the stress it formerly carried is thrown 
upon the other crystals of the section. The weakest 
of the remaining crystals fails next, and so on until 
complete rupture of the piece is affected. This is 
called the theory of molecular disintegration. 

If steel were a perfectly homogeneous substance, 
fatigue would be unknown. In searching for a 
remedy, therefore, we must first find out what con- 
tributes to the lack of homogeneity. Sulphur and 
phosphorus, present in the form of sulphides and 
phosphides of iron, exert a great weakening effect 
on the iron, and may, therefore, be set down as 
exerting a great influence on the fatigue of steel. 
Iron oxide also has a weakening effect. Any 
element that will take the above constituents out of 
the steel will contribute to the ability of steel to 
resist fatigue. Vanadium is that element. 

When vanadium is added to a melt of steel, the 
first thing that happens is that the sulphur, phos- 
phorus, and oxygen in combination with the iron 



VANADIUM STEELS 105 

leave the iron and combine with the vanadium, 
their affinity for vanadium being greater than their 
affinity for iron. A slag is formed, which is easily 
separated from the remaining steel. The steel re- 
sulting has been found to offer a remarkable re- 
sistance to fatigue. In actual test a piece of carbon 
steel withstood 100 alternations of stress, while a 
piece of vanadium steel withstood 215 alternations, 
thus showing the beneficial effect of vanadium. 

The introduction of vanadium steels makes it 
possible to design members subject to shock and 
repeated loadings with reasonable factors of safety 
with a reasonable certainty that the member will 
stand up. The manufacturer who makes his crank- 
shafts and axles of vanadium steel can make them 
smaller and more cheaply than can his rival who 
uses the older carbon or nickle steels. He can also 
design the parts with more certainty and make his 
product comparatively free from the mysterious fail- 
ures that have been the bugbear of users of ordi- 
nary steels. 



THE NECESSITY FOR ADEQUATE RAIL- 
WAY REVENUES 

MAETIIf A. KNAPP 

An address by Martin A. Knapp, chairman of the Inter- 
state Commerce Commission, at the annual dinner of the 
Railway Business Association, in New York, November 
22, 1910. 

The question of railroad rates; that is to say, of 
railroad revenues, involves vastly more than the 
direct interest of shippers or shareholders. In a 
very real sense, in a sense which is fortunately 
coming to be better understood, it is a great ques- 
tion of national policy second to none in its economic 
importance. Speaking only for myself, and without 
reference to the pending controversy over rate ad- 
vances or any other concrete instance, I suggest 
three aspects of this question which are of imme- 
diate and intense public concern. If our country is 
to grow and prosper as it ought, if its untold re- 
sources are to be developed and its swelling num- 
bers find profitable employment, we need and must 
have railway earnings sufficient for three things : 

1st. A return on railway investments of such 
amount and so well assured as to attract and secure 
the necessary capital — an enormous sum in the 
aggregate — to improve existing roads and to con- 

107 



108 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

struct without delay thousands of miles of new- 
lines in fruitful districts now destitute of any means 
of transportation. It is a matter of common knowl- 
edge that the output of traffic for the fiscal year 
1907 exceeded our entire carrying capacity on land 
and water. With the rapid increase of population 
and of productive efficiency; that is, with a greater 
army of workers and better industrial organization, 
the volume of that year ought to be and will be 
nearly doubled in another decade if only we can 
provide for its prompt and proper distribution. And 
when we think of the rich regions yet unopened 
because unserved, when we recall, for example, that 
there is to-day in the old State of Maine a section 
larger than the whole of Massachusetts in which 
there is not a rod of railroad, must we not be im- 
pressed with a realization of pressing need and of 
boundless opportunity! Since it is our national 
policy — and long will be, I trust — to rely upon 
private capital and private enterprise to provide 
these great highways of commerce, to improve and 
multiply them in pace with our requirements, must 
we not in the larger public interest, whatever may 
be thought by this or that shipper, make the busi- 
ness of furnishing railroad transportation, which 
shall be up to the best standard of efficiency, con- 
venience, and safety, so desirable to the investor 
that the necessary funds for betterments and exten- 
sions will be forthcoming, and so attractive as a 
vocation that the highest ability will be employed 
in its management? Otherwise, if unhappily this is 



RAILWAY REVENUES 109 

not done, must not our country come measurably 
to a standstill and face a future of comparative stag- 
nation? 

2d. The payment of liberal wages to an adequate 
number of competent men. This not only to insure 
increasing skill and reliability in a service which is 
all the while becoming more exacting, and on which 
the safety and comfort of the public constantly de- 
pend, but also because of the very great influence 
of railway wages upon the compensation of labor 
in every sphere and grade of private employment. 
To my mind the fundamental social problem is to 
provide, by the wise development of our institutions 
and without radical action or injustice, for a more 
equable diffusion of the bountiful wealth which the 
earth produces. Now, as a large and increasing 
majority of the able bodied live, and must live, 
by working for others in some capacity, a high and 
advancing standard of payment for service of every 
sort tends strongly to promote, and is the best 
practical means to bring about that degree of 
equality in social welfare which makes for the satis- 
faction and happiness of all our people. 

3d. The betterment of existing lines so as to 
greatly augment their serviceableness to the public, 
as can in varying degree be done everywhere, with- 
out unnecessary and undesirable increase in capi- 
talization. Every dollar borrowed to improve a 
road now in operation involves a permanent addi- 
tion to the interest charge which the public is re- 
quired to pay; the improvement from current earn- 



110 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

ings puts no lien upon the property but rather aug- 
ments its value and usefulness, and by adding to the 
security of the capital already invested tends to a 
lower rate of interest upon that capital. Broadly 
speaking, this means a national policy, so to speak, 
in respect of railroad rates and revenues in harmony 
with our national policy in other matters of public 
concern, and in accordance with that enlarging 
spirit of altruism which manifests itself in public, as 
well as in private life, and which impels the present 
assumption of burdens that might be escaped or 
deferred in order that another generation may have 
an easier task and a larger opportunity. Is it not 
in this particular field a wise and patriotic policy? 



HOURS OF SERVICE OF RAILWAY 
EMPLOYEES 

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE 

Remarks of Robert M, La Follette in the Senate of the 
United States during the discussion of a bill to regulate tTie 
hours of service, June, 1906. 

Mr. President, if there is an aroused public senti- 
ment for legislative action at this time, it is because 
the public interest has been so long neglected. 

The righteous appeals of the railway employees 
have been ignored and denied. 

For nearly twenty-five years they have prayed for 
legislation to protect them against the negligence 
of the railway companies. The railway service is 
under the severest discipline. Employees are com- 
pelled to serve with the men the company hires. 
They cannot choose their associates. To ofifer any 
objection is to invite discharge. They suflfer loss of 
life and limb in that service through the careless- 
ness of co-employees and the negligence of the rail- 
way companies. 

For nearly a quarter of a century they sought 
relief from Congress in vain. Is it to be marveled 
that the public is awakening to a sense of the wrong 
it has suffered? Shall its persistent and perfectly 
fair and reasonable demand for just legislation be 
rebuked as clamor and disease? 



112 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Every country in the world has recognized the 
demand for legislation that will make the employer 
respond in damages for the carelessness of the com- 
pany and negligence or carelessness of the co- 
employee through whom an employee of the 
company receives injury. Yet the railroad em- 
ployees of this country sufifered without remedy 
until the present session, when a reasonably good 
bill passed this Congress, after a protracted struggle 
to defeat it. 

So with the present bill. The railway employees 
have asked again and again for legislation placing 
a reasonable limit upon the number of hours of con- 
tinued service beyond which they shall not be re- 
quired to run trains. It is argued here that it can 
be left to contract between the railway companies 
and their employees. Every man who is at all 
familiar with the relations existing between railway 
employees and the companies knows perfectly well 
that whenever an engineer is called to take out his 
engine, whenever the call is made upon the train 
crew, no matter whether they have been on duty 
to the limit of human endurance, with scarcely an 
hour's rest, they must respond to that call. They 
cannot argue the matter with the railroad company. 
They cannot refuse to go out. 

Of course they will not be discharged at once for 
such refusal. That would be a violation of the 
contract. But the refusal is noted on the record 
of such employee by the train dispatcher. Within a 
month or two, for some reason that cannot be con- 



RAILWAY EMPLOYEES 113 

strued to be a violation of the contract entered into 
between the employee and the railroad company, 
the employee finds himself dismissed from the ser- 
vices, and dismissed under conditons that will not 
admit of his procuring employment with other 
companies. 

The service of the railroad companies is in many 
respects a most difficult one. It is hazardous. It is 
a service in which the public is profoundly inter- 
ested. This legislation is demanded because it is 
just to a faithful, intelligent, and courageous army 
of men and reasonable in its terms. 

Furthermore, it is demanded because the public 
is deeply interested. It is vital to all who travel 
that the men who operate the railway trains of this 
country are in the best physical and mental condi- 
tion. With scarcely an exception, every afternoon 
as the hands of the clock point to the hour of five, 
some Senator rises to entreat those in charge of 
legislation for an adjournment. They find them- 
selves weary and exhausted with their attendance 
upon the session for a scant five hours. The Record 
is full of the complaints of Senators that they have 
been required to sit here through half the day. 

Think of the engineer who takes out an engine 
at midnight for his long run. His employment may 
not be so exacting as that of Senators on this floor, 
but the alertness demanded, the concentration of all 
his faculties, is what wears upon the man. That 
engineer sits with hand on lever and throttle peering 
ahead, with all the faculties of his mind and all the 



114 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

powers of his being concentrated on the safe con- 
duct of that train to its destination. He has not 
only the strain which comes of nervous tension, of 
a constant apprehension of danger, but he has the 
weariness which comes with physical taxation. So 
with the fireman ; so with the conductors. When 
those men have been on duty continuously for six- 
teen hours, how can any Senator argue that the law 
ought not fix a limitation beyond which they shall 
not be required to serve? 

There has been no session of Congress for many 
years when this subject has not been earnestly 
pressed upon those charged with the responsibility 
of legislation. It is idle, it is belittling, for Sena- 
tors to rise now, after having occupied the time of 
the Senate in various ways for the last few days, 
in order to prevent the consideration of this bill, 
with a pretense that here is a new proposition for 
the consideration of Congress. Why, sir, the Presi- 
dent of the United States in every message, I think, 
since he came to that high office has recommended 
this legislation to Congress. 

I read to the Senate two or three days ago, when 
this matter was under debate, a few words from the 
messages of President Roosevelt. In view of the 
character of the discussion here to-night I will re- 
peat them now, because, if action upon this bill is 
prevented at this session of Congress, I shall do 
what I can here to-night to impress upon the 
country that it is in the face of the recommendation 
of the Interstate Commerce Commission, of the 



RAILWAY EMPLOYEES 115 

recommendation of the Industrial Commission, of 
the appeals of railway employees of this country, 
whose petitions come from 194 of the largest brother- 
hoods of locomotive engineers in the country, which 
lie upon the table of the Senate, and of the recom- 
mendations of the President of the United States, 
who authorized me to-day to say on this flpor that 
it was his earnest hope that the Senate would take 
action upon this bill, which is so reasonable in the 
limitations which it purposes to impose upon the 
railroads of the country. 

In his message to the third session of the Fifty- 
eighth Congress, the President said: 

I would also point out to the Congress the 
urgent need of legislation in the interest of the 
public safety, limiting the hours of labor for 
railroad employees in train service upon railroads 
engaged in interstate commerce. 

In his message to this Congress, nothing having 
been done by the Congress pursuant to the message 
from which I have just quoted, he repeated the 
recommendation, and emphasized it in the following 
language : 

The excessive hours of labor to which rail- 
road employees in train service are in many cases 
subjected is also a matter which may well en- 
gage the serious attention of the Congress. 

To some of the Senators, Mr. President, who have 
been participating in this discussion to-night, who 
have proclaimed from this floor to the country that 



116 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

they have heard no demand for this legislation, I 
commend these words of the President of the 
United States : 

The strain, both mental and physical, upon 
those who are engaged in the movement and 
operation of railroad trains under modern con- 
ditions is perhaps greater than that which exists 
in any other industry, and if there are any rea- 
sons for limiting by law the hours of labor in 
any employment, they certainly apply with 
peculiar force to the employment of those upon 
whose vigilance and alertness in the perform- 
ance of their duties the safety of all who travel 
by rail depends. 

Mr. President, I want to suggest to those, who for 
many days have interposed every possible objection 
to a vote upon this bill, that in so doing they are 
assuming a grave responsibility. Scarcely a sun 
rises on this country that it does not witness some 
accident due to the fact that the railroad employees 
have been overtaxed in their service. If this legis- 
lation is to be withheld from the statute books at 
this session by methods such as have been employed 
here to defeat it, those who have engaged in that 
business will have to assume the responsibility for 
whatever casualties may befall the traveling public 
and the railway employees of this country which 
the passage of this bill might have served to prevent. 



THE RAILWAY RATE BILL 

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE 

A Speech by Robert M. La Follette in the Senate of the 
United States during the discussion of the railway rate bill 
in April, 1906. 

Sir, this extended review of the evidence of in- 
creasing rates and vicious discrimination, of the 
methods of railroad building, overcapitalization, and 
reckless speculation, demonstrates the necessity of 
the valuation of railroad property as an indispen- 
sable basis for securing to the people of this country 
just and reasonable rates. Before this bill becomes 
a law I trust that the amendment which I shall 
ofifer, or some better one, will be incorporated, mak- 
ing full and complete provision at an early date for 
the true valuation of all the railroad property of the 
United States. 

I cannot refrain from suggesting that the rail- 
roads of this country can no longer afford to oppose 
this valuation. It is best for them that it should 
be known. They contend that their railroads are 
worth the amount for which they are capitalized. 
The public contends that the capitalization is 
grossly in excess of the fair value and not a law- 
ful basis for taxing transportation. This great issue 
between the public and the railroads can be juggled 

117 



118 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

with no longer. It cannot be settled by legislation 
which palliates the wrong. It must be settled by 
getting the true value, the fair value of railway 
property. If there is to be an end of antagonism 
and dissention between the people and the transpor- 
tation companies, it can be found, sir, in no other 
way. 

Mr. President, when it is remembered that the 
Interstate Commerce Commission is the only tribu- 
nal that stands between the railroads and the public ; 
when it is considered that the power conferred upon 
the Commission is the power of Congress itself; 
that the Commission really represents the Govern- 
ment of the United States, and when we test the 
bill before us by the obligation of Congress to 
guard in full measure the public interest with all 
the sovereign power of the Federal Government, 
does not the proposed law seem to fall short of a 
just and comprehensive treatment of a great sub- 
ject of legislation? 

I would not be unfair. The bill is not bad in its 
provisions, but weak because of its omissions. I 
do not believe that the bill is framed to meet the 
demands of "special interests." Nor has any broad 
consideration of public interest dominated its con- 
struction. 

It has neither ill intent nor high purpose. Expedi- 
ency seems to have been the controlling factor in 
framing it. 

It seems a response to the impelling necessity for 
some legislation. 



RAILWAY RATE BILL 119 

It is probably just to the members of the com- 
mittee who joined in reporting this bill to the Senate 
to say that it is their measure of the willingness of 
Congress to legislate on the subject; that it is as 
strong a bill as they believe could pass the Senate. 
But if this bill is not amended to meet the public 
need, if it should pass without being strengthened 
and improved, so as to make it a basis upon which 
to build substantially in the future, then it may as 
well be understood now that it will not quiet public 
interest nor prevent further demands. It will be- 
come the issue of a new campaign, more certain, 
more definite, and more specific than ever before. 

This session of Congress will be but the prelimi- 
nary skirmish of the great contest to follow. On 
the day that it is known that only the smallest pos- 
sible measure of relief has been granted the move- 
ment will begin anew all over the country for a 
larger concession to public right. That movement 
will not stop until it is completely successful. The 
only basis upon which it can be settled finally in a 
free country is a control of the public-service corpo- 
rations broad enough, strong enough, and strict enough 
to insure justice and equality to all American 
citizens. 

Why pursue a shortsighted, temporizing course? 
Is it not worse than folly to believe that a country 
like ours, with all its glorious traditions, will sur- 
render in this war for industrial independence? 

Mr. President, the people of this generation have 
witnessed a revolution which has changed the in- 



120 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

dustrial and commercial life of a nation. They have 
seen the business system of a century battered 
down, in violation of State and Federal statutes, and 
another builded on its ruins. 

They know exactly what has happened and why 
it has happened. 

The farmer knows that there is no open, free 
competitive market for anything he may produce 
upon his farm. He knows that he must accept the 
prices arbitrarily fixed by the beef trust and the 
elevator combination. He knows that both of these 
organizations have been given control of the mar- 
kets by the railroads. 

The independent manufacturer knows that he no 
longer has an open field and a fairly competitive 
chance to market his product against the trust, with 
its railroad interests. 

The consumer knows that his prices are made for 
him by those who control the avenues of trade and 
the highways of commerce. The public has suf- 
fered much. It demands relief. 

Mr. President, Senators in this discussion have 
avowed that they were not to be influenced by 
popular clamor; that they have no sympathy with 
bigotry that is blind to great railway enterprise and 
the value of the services which these corporations 
render to the public. It has been denounced as 
meddlesome interference for anyone to question the 
right of the railways to fix the markets of this 
country and to control the destination of its com- 
merce. Public discussion in support of this legisla- 



RAILWAY RATE BILL 121 

tion is rebuked as "noisy declamation/' and we are 
advised that public opinion should be scorned; that 
it is as shifting as the sands of the sea. 

It has been suggested by the Senator from Massa- 
chusetts [Mr. Lodge] that we might safely, from 
time to time, adopt "certain loose and general propo- 
sitions" in the form of harmless resolutions, "which 
thunder in the index, and show that we are prop- 
erl}^ aroused to the dangers arising from corpora- 
tions generally and from railroads in particular, 
and which do not commit us to any specific legisla- 
tion." 

Sir, I respect public opinion. I do not fear it. I 
do not hold it in contempt. The public judgment 
of this great country forms slowly. It is intelligent. 
No body of men in this country is superior to it. In 
a representative democracy the common judgment 
of the majority must find expression in the law of 
the land. To deny this is to repudiate the principles 
upon which representative democracy is founded. 

It is not prejudice nor clamor which is pressing 
this subject upon the attention of this body. It is a 
calm, well-considered public judgment. It is born 
of conviction — not passion — and it were wise for us 
to give it heed. 

The public has reasoned out its case. For more 
than a generation of time it has wrought upon this 
great question with heart and brain in its daily con- 
tact with the great railway corporations. It has 
mastered all the facts. It is just. It is honest. It 
is rational. It respects property rights. It well 



122 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

knows that its own industrial and commercial pros- 
perity would suffer and decline if the railroads were 
wronged, their capital impaired, their profits un- 
justly diminished. 

But the public refuses longer to recognize this 
subject as one which the railroads alone have the 
right to pass upon. It declines longer to approach 
it with awe. It no longer regards the railroad 
schedule as a mystery. It understands the mean- 
ing of rebates and "concessions," the evasions 
through ^'purchasing agents" and false weights, the 
subterfuge of "damage claims," the significance of 
"switching charges," "midnight tariffs," "milling in 
transit," "tap-line allowances," "underbilling," and 
"demurrage charges." It comprehends the device 
known as the "industrial railway," the "terminal 
railway," and all the tricks of inside companies, each 
levying tribute upon the traffic. It is quite familiar 
with the favoritism given to express companies, and 
knows exactly how producer and consumer have 
been handed over by the railroads, to be plundered 
by private car and refrigerator lines, in exhange for 
their traffic. 

The public has gone even deeper into the sub- 
ject. It knows that transportation is vital to organ- 
ized society; that it is a function of government; 
that railway lines are the public highways to 
market; that these highways are established under 
the sanction of government; that the railway cor- 
poration dictates the location of its right-of-way, 
lays its tracks over the property of the citizen with- 



b 



RAILWAY RATE BILL 123 

out his consent, and that he must market the 
products of his capital and his labor over this high- 
way, if at all, on the terms fixed by the railway cor- 
poration. Or, to say it arrogantly and brutally, as 
did the president of the Louisville and Nashville 
Railway Company in his testimony before the In- 
terstate Commerce Commission, that the public can 
pay the charge which the railroad demands, "or it 
can walk.'* In short, sir, the public has come to 
understand that the railway corporation is a natu- 
ral monopoly, which has been created by act of 
government, and that under existing conditions the 
public is completely at the mercy of this natural 
monopoly. 

Because it is a natural monopoly, because it is the 
creature of government, it becomes the duty of 
government to see to it that the railway company 
inflicts no wrong upon the public, to compel it to 
do what is right, and to perform its office as a 
common carrier. 

Sir, it IS much easier to stand with these great 
interests than against them. This was true when 
Adam Smith wrote his Wealth of Nations, and it 
is true in 1906. Writing of the struggle with mo- 
nopoly in the eighteenth century, he said : 

The member of Parliament who supports every 
proposition for strengthening monopoly is sure 
to acquire great reputation for understanding 
trade, and also great popularity and influence 
with an order of men whose numbers and wealth 
render them of great importance. If he opposes 
them, on the contrary, and still more, if he have 



124 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

authority enough to thwart them, neither the 
most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, 
nor the greatest public service, can protect him 
from the most infamous abuse and detraction, 
from personal insults, nor sometimes from real 
danger arising from the influence of furious 
and disappointed monopolists. 

At no time in the history of any nation has it 
been so difficult to withstand these forces as it is 
right here in America to-day. Their power is 
acknowledged in every community and manifest 
in every lawmaking body. It is idle to ignore it. 
There exists all over this country a distrust of Con- 
gress, a fear that monopolistic wealth holds the bal- 
ance of power in legislation. 

Mr. President, I contend here, as I have contended 
upon the public platform in Wisconsin, and in other 
States, that the history of the last thirty years of 
struggle for just and equitable legislation demon- 
strates that the powerful combinations of organized 
wealth and special interests have had an overbalanc- 
ing control in State and national legislation. 

For a generation the American people have 
watched the growth of this power in legislation. 
They observe how vast and far-reaching these mod- 
ern business methods are in fact. Against the natu- 
ral laws of trade and commerce is set the arbitrary 
will of a few masters of special privilege. The prin- 
cipal transportation lines of the country are so 
operated as to eliminate competition. Between rail- 
roads and other monopolies controlling great natu- 
ral resources and most of the necessaries of life 



RAILWAY RATE BILL 125 

there exists a "community of interests" in all cases 
and an identity of ownership in many. They have 
observed that these great combinations are closely 
associated in business for business reasons; that 
they are also closely associated in politics for busi- 
ness reasons; that together they constitute a com- 
plete system; that they encroach upon the public 
rights, defeat legislation for the public good, and 
secure laws to promote private interests. 

Is it to be marveled at that the American people 
have become convinced that railroads and industrial 
trusts stand between them and their representa- 
tives ; that they have come to believe that the daily 
conviction of public officials for betrayal of public 
trust in municipal. State, and national government 
is but a suggestion of the potential influence of these 
great combinations of wealth and power? 

During this debate there has been much talli 
about the country having "hysteria." Magazine 
writers and press correspondents have been de- 
nounced, and there would seem to be an agreement 
that they are to be pursued and discredited, lest 
they lodge in the popular mind a wrongful estimate 
of the public service. 

It does not lie in the power of any or all of the 
magazines of the country or of the press, great as 
it is, to destroy, without justification, the confidence 
of the people in the American Congress. Neither 
can any man on earth, whatever his position or 
power, alter the settled conviction of the intelligent 
citizenship of this country when it is grounded on 



126 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

fact and experience. It rests solely with the United 
States Senate to fix and maintain its own reputation 
for fidelity to public trust. It will be judged by 
the record. It cannot repose in security upon its 
exalted position and the glorious heritage of its 
traditions. It is worse than folly to feel, or to pro- 
fess to feel, indifferent with respect to public judg- 
ment. If public confidence is wanting in Congress, 
it is not of hasty growth, it is not the product of 
"jaundiced journalism." It is the result of years of 
disappointment and defeat. It is the outgrowth of 
a quarter of a century of keen, discriminating study 
of public questions, public records, and the lives of 
public men. 

In the Supreme Court, midway between the Sen- 
ate and the House, Mr. Justice Brewer has, for a 
quarter of a century, investigated, analyzed, and 
construed the legislative work of Congress. A keen 
and critical observer of men and events, he can 
speak with wisdom on the development and tenden- 
cies of the day, and no man will dare to say that he 
speaks in passion or with any ulterior purpose. 

In an address on *'The ethical obligation of the 
lawyer as a lawmaker," before the Albany Law 
School, June 1, 1904, he said : 

No one can be blind to the fact that these 
mighty corporations are holding out most tempt- 
ing inducements to lawmakers to regard in their 
lawmaking those interests rather than the wel- 
fare of the nation. 

Senators and Representatives have owed their 
places to corporate influence, and that influence 



RAILWAY RATE BILL 127 

has been exerted under an expectation, if not an 
understanding, that as lawmakers the corporate 
interests shall be subserved. . . . 

The danger lies in the fact that they are so 
powerful and that the pressure of so much 
power upon the individual lawmaker tempts him 
to forget the nation and remember the corpora- 
tion. And the danger is greater because it is 
insidious. 

There may be no written agreement. There 
may be, in fact, no agreement at all, and yet, 
when the lawmaker understands that the power 
exists which may make for his advancement or 
otherwise and that it will be exerted according 
to the pliancy with which he yields to its solicita- 
tions, it lifts the corporation into a position of 
constant danger and menace to republican institu- 
tions. 

For the first time in many years a great measure 
is before this body for its final action. The subject 
with which it deals goes to the very heart of the 
whole question. Out of railroad combination with 
monopoly and its power over legislation comes the 
perilous relation which Mr. Justice Brewer says 
"lifts the corporation into a position of constant 
danger and menace to republican institutions." 

We have the opportunity to meet the demands of 
the hour, or we may weakly temporize while the 
storm continues to gather. 

On Plymouth Rock eighty-six years ago Daniel 
Webster, looking with prophetic vision into the cen- 
tury beyond, uttered these words, which fall upon 
this day and generation as a solemn mandate : 



128 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

As experience may show errors in our estab- 
lishments we are bound to correct them, and if 
any practices exist contrary to the principles of 
justice and humanity within the reach of our 
laws or our mfluence, we are inexcusable if we 
do not exert ourselves to restrain and abolish 
them. 

Mr. President, our responsibility is great; our 
duty is plain. If a true spirit of independent, pa- 
triotic service controls Congress, this bill will be 
reconstructed on the broad basis of public interest. 



ALASKA: THE NATION'S STOREHOUSE 

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTB 

Remarks of Robert M. La Follette in the Senate of the 
United States, August 21, 191 1. 

Mr. President, the conservation of our natural 
resources is one of the most important problems 
of this generation. It is only recently that it has 
been generally realized that our natural resources 
are not inexhaustible. 

Originally the public domain of the United States 
amounted in round numbers to 1,400,000,000 acres. 
Of this amount nearly all of the original domain 
available for agriculture and the greater part of 
our mineral wealth outside of Alaska has been dis- 
posed of, amounting in round numbers to more 
than 700,000,000 acres. Of this amount individuals 
and corporations have acquired more than 571,- 
000,000 acres. Out of the 571,000,000 acres disposed 
of to individuals and corporations there have been 
acquired through the exercise of the homestead 
right only 115,000,000 acres. The railroads and 
other corporations had bestowed upon them by con- 
gressional grants, without any return whatever to 
the Government, in round numbers, 123,000,000 
acres. 

Many of the mistakes which have been mads in 
129 



130 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

the States cannot be rectified. When remedies may- 
be possible they may sometimes be found difficult 
of application. But in Alaska we still have a mag- 
nificent domain practical^ untouched, a dom.ain 
consisting of 368,000,000 acres of land, an empire of 
wealth in coal and other mineral resources, the ex- 
tent of which has not been determined. With the 
experience of the past, the waste of these resources, 
the turning of them over to speculation and monop- 
oly would be a crime against the people of the 
United vStates. Here we have conditions permitting 
of true conservation without encountering the prob- 
lems which confront us in considering the public 
domain in the States. These resources cannot to 
any great degree be developed by the individual 
man through the labor of his hands. Here are no 
vast tracts of agricultural lands to complicate the 
problem. It requires capital to develop these re- 
sources, and the question is, Shall the profit all go 
to private capital, or shall the people as a whole — 
the owners of these resources — with their own capi- 
tal make possible such a development as will insure 
to the people their share of benefits? 

Alaska was purchased with the people's money, 
taken from their common fund — the Treasury of 
the United States. Whatever of profit, whatever of 
advantage m any way accrues from that purchase 
belongs to all the people, and it will be the great- 
est crime of our generation if we permit it to be 
given over to Morgan, Guggenheim, and other great 
financial interests. 



ALASKA 131 

Whatever evidence or lack of evidence there may- 
be as to the present intentions and maneuvers of 
corporate power in Alaska, our experience with the 
same forces nearer home teaches us that monopoly 
under these conditions is inevitable. Anyone who 
examines these documents must see that the founda- 
tions are being laid in Wall Street for the upbuild- 
ing of a monopoly in Alaska equal to that which 
controls the great anthracite coal fields cf Pennsyl- 
vania. Here we have the same work of pioneers 
and prospectors, the same investors and mining 
companies, securing foothold and endeavoring to 
reach the market, but unable to induce capital to 
assume the risks of a contest with special interesi.^^, 
denied all hope of transportation and reasonable 
freight rates to reach markets. The same situation, 
if unchecked in Alaska, will develop in a very few 
years to the point of monopoly control which it re- 
quired thirty years to reach in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. President, the key to the whole situation is 
the control of the means of transportation. 

The anthracite coal of the United States lies in 
three small fields in the State of Pennsylvania. 
Brought together into one body they would consti- 
tute a little strip of country eight miles by sixty — 
that is all of the anthracite coal outside of Alaska. 

This little patch of anthracite coal to-day is 
owned, Mr. President, chiefly by one, and entirely, 
except a very small percentage of it, by two rail- 
road companies. How did they acquire it? There 
was a time when it belonged to individuals who 



132 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

were seeking to develop it. But in 1871 eight rail- 
roads tapped these coal fields. Not a pound of that 
coal could go to market except over the lines of 
these railroads. 

These eight railroad companies conspired to take 
that coal land away from the individuals who owned 
it. How? They had absolute control of the only 
highways over which the coal could find its way to 
market. It was in their power to charge such trans- 
portation rates as they chose, to withhold cars if 
they saw fit, and in all the devious ways in which 
the business of the great transportation lines of the 
country may be operated to oppress shippers, to 
work their will and take over the property of the 
individual owners of those coal lands. They effected 
an organization ; they proceeded to formulate rules 
and to enforce such hard conditions with respect to 
transportation as made it impossible for the men 
who owned the land to produce the coal and trans- 
port it to market at a profit. One after another 
these men were forced to the wall and compelled to 
surrender their property. The weakest went down 
first. Finally, the State of Pennsylvania, aroused at 
the wrong and injustice inflicted by the transporta- 
tion companies upon the individual owners of these 
coal fields, called a convention and adopted an 
amendment to the State constitution the purpose 
of which was to put an end to these wrongs. 

In 1873 the State of Pennsylvania wrote into its 
constitution a provision that no railroad company 
should acquire or own or operate mines or mining 



ALASKA 133 

lands. It put an express provision into the constitu- 
tion limiting the rights of the railroads in the ac- 
quisition of real estate to land acquired solely for 
transportation purposes — a proper and a legitimate 
provision to write into organic and statutory law. 

One would think that such a provision would 
have afforded protection and put an end to the 
tyranny and oppression of these railroads. It did 
not. They trampled under foot that constitutional 
provision ; they paid no heed to it whatever ; they 
went on acquiring control of these coal lands by op- 
pression which has seldom been equaled in any 
country since society was organized and govern- 
ments established. Men were ruined, their property 
taken from them at such a pittance as the railroad 
companies chose to pay for it, and, finally, Mr. 
President, a subservient Pennsylvania Legislature — 
and the Legislature of Pennsylvania has, with rare 
exceptions, been subservient to corporations — I say 
a subservient Pennsylvania Legislature, instead of 
enacting appropriate legislation for the enforcement 
of this constitutional provision, enacted a law for- 
ever preventing any of the lands thus acquired from 
escheating to the State. They gave immunity to 
these railroads — clothed them with an indefeasible 
title in these lands acquired in violation of the or- 
ganic law of the State. The constitutional pro- 
vision directed against railroad control of the coal 
fields required legislative enactment to make it 
operative, and the Legislature, instead of making it 
operative, strangled it and then passed a statute to 



134 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

make secure the title of the railroads in these coal 
lands they had filched from the owners. 

Thus it was that the tremendous power of freight 
discriminations first showed itself in the anthracite 
coal fields of Pennsylvania 40 years ago when it 
was employed to force ultimately the sale of 95 
per cent, of all the individually owned anthracite 
coal lands to railroads owning and operating the 
only lines over which the coal could be transported 
to market. 

We are now required to decide which of these two 
methods shall the American people adopt in Alaska. 
Shall we give Alaska over for the profit — the enor- 
mous and ever-increasing profit — of that great or- 
ganization, now practically under the direction of 
a single mind in this country, controlling the credits, 
the transportation, the industrial organizations, the 
franchise institutions of the country? Will the 
American people be so blind, so dull, as to permit 
this enormously rich field of Alaska to become the 
property of Morgan and those allied with him, and 
thus . force all the great western country and the 
millions who are to people it in the generations to 
come to pay such extortionate prices for coal as 
that power will certainly exact, or will the people 
of this country, who own Alaska, see to it that this 
great storehouse of wealth shall be used for the 
benefit of all the people, their children, and their 
children's children for all time? 

The American people are the owners of the re- 
sources of Alaska. These have been preserved 



ALASKA 135 

up to the present time by withdrawing them from 
occupation and use. The people now clamor for 
their use and for the development which is essential 
to their use. They are entitled to get the benefit 
of the reduction in the cost of living which will come 
from a utilization of Alaska's treasures. The whole 
Pacific coast demands access to the enormous coal 
deposits. The people east of the Rocky Mountains 
will gain by their development. Even the Navy 
Department of the Federal Government is com- 
pelled to pay $9 to $12 for coal on the Pacific coast 
which costs $3 to $4 on the Atlantic coast. The tests 
which have been made show that samples of coal 
from veins as thick as 33 feet in the Controller Bay 
region have a higher heating value than coal se- 
cured by the Navy Department on the eastern tide- 
water. 

The problem then remaining is how to administer 
this great estate. The example of Panama points 
the way. Congress, of course, cannot deal with this 
subject in all of its details nor assume the manage- 
ment of the development of our resources in Alaska. 
The same reasons which prevent Congress from un- 
dertaking supervision apply practically with equal 
force to the President, the Interior Department and 
the Interstate Commerce Commission. 

The sensible and practical thing to do is to create 
a board of public works for Alaska, to be appointed 
by the President and confirmed by the Senate, sim- 
ilar to the Isthmian Canal Commission. This board 
of public works should then undertake, not merely 



136 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

to build a railroad from Controller Bay to the coal 
fields, but it should now acquire all of the railroads 
in Alaska, and settle at once the policy of govern- 
mental ownership. It should similarly provide for 
the development of other public utilities, such as 
the telegraph and telephone. It should operate and 
develop the wharves and docks and steamship lines, 
if necessary, to deliver the products of Alaska to 
the Pacific coast. The Morgan-Guggenheims, accus- 
tomed to the highest profits on their investments, 
and demanding to a great extent immediate returns, 
must make exorbitant and oppressive charges. The 
people of the United States do not demand an im- 
mediate return. They can themselves supply all 
necessary money at an interest charge of less than 
3 per cent. Rates for transportation and for other 
public utilities may properly be low, with the capital 
cost as small as the investment would be to the 
people. Most important of all is control of the 
transportation facilities by the Government. It 
would forever remove the irresistible temptation of 
discrimination, rebates, and corruption which have 
characterized the worst period of our railroad opera- 
tion. 

The whole situation is summed up in the Republi- 
can platform of Wisconsin, adopted September, 
1910, which says : 

The attempt of private monopoly to steal the 
Alaskan coal fields was defeated for the time be- 
ing through the efforts of a few courageous offi- 
cials whose sacrfiice and devotion to duty furnish 
an example worthy of emulation in every depart- 



ALASKA 137 

ment and rank of the public service. Failing to 
secure the coal fields through perjury and fraud, 
special interests will exploit them through a 
monopoly of transportation. The title to the coal 
fields of Alaska should be forever retained by 
the Government, subject to lease under proper 
regulation. The situation of Alaska is excep- 
tional. Transportation is the basis of control. 
It is the key to this vast territory of treasure. 
As exceptional conditions in Panama require the 
Government of the United States to own and 
operate a railroad on the Isthmus in order to pro- 
tect its interests and the interests of shippers, 
so we hold that exceptional conditions in Alaska 
require that the Federal Government should con- 
struct, own, and operate the railroads, docks, and 
steamship lines necessary to the opening up of 
the Alaska coal fields and other natural resources. 

With a law such as I have indicated, the Govern- 
ment owning the railroads, the direct operation or 
leasing of the coal fields under proper regulations, 
insuring a proper revenue to the Government for 
the benefit of the people, and proper regulations 
that will protect the consumer, all under the man- 
agement of a board of experts having in mind only 
the public interest, I believe that the problem of 
conservation of our natural resources in Alaska will 
be solved and that its administration there will be 
of great aid to us in securing solutions for some 
of the problems which confront us in considering the 
conservation of such natural resources as are still 
a part of the public domain in the States. 



ON WITHDRAWING FROM THE UNION 

JEFFERSON DAVIS 

A part of the speech delivered by Jefferson Davis in the 
United States Senate, January 21, 1861. 

[According to Edward A. Pollard in "The Life of Jefferson 
Davis," it was in the Senate of the United States, the highest 
school of eloquence in America, that Mr. Davis formed his 
style. His was the oratory delivered to the few and culti- 
vated. He had a wealth of words that were both forceful 
and polished, coupled with a rich, manly eloquence." He 
spoke very deliberately, "somtimes with majestic slowness 
pouring out his wealth of eloquenc." Mr. Davis had above all 
else that which constitutes the highest art of oratory, "self- 
countenance in the expression of passion."] 

I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announc- 
ing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence 
that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance 
of her people in convention assembled, has declared 
her separation from the United States. Under these 
circumstances, of course my functions are termi- 
nated here. It has seemed to me proper, however, 
that I should appear in the Senate to announce that 
fact to my associates. 

It is known to senators who have served with me 
here that I have for many years advocated, as an 
essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right of 
a State to secede from the Union. I hope none who 
hear me will confound this expression of mine with 

139 



140 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

the advocacy of a State to remain in the Union, 
and to disregard its constitutional obligation by the 
nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. 
Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are 
indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a 
remedy which it is sought to apply within the 
Union, and against the agent of the States. Seces- 
sion belongs to a different class of remedies. It is 
to be justified upon the basis that the States are 
sovereign. I therefore say I concur in the action of 
the people of Mississippi, believing it to be neces- 
sary and proper, and should have been bound by 
their action if my belief had been otherwise ; and 
this brings me to the important point which I wish 
on this last occasion to present to the Senate. A 
State finding herself in the condition in which Mis- 
sissippi has judged she is, in Avhich her safety re- 
quires that she should provide for the maintenance 
of her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the 
benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives 
herself of the advantages (they are known to be 
great), severs all the ties of affection (and they are 
close and enduring), which have bound her to the 
Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit, 
taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be 
exempt from any power to execute the laws of the 
United States within her limits. 

I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts 
was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and 
when then the doctrine of coercion was rife and to 
be applied against her because of the rescue of a 



JEFFERSON DAVIS 141 

fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was 
the same that it is now. I then said, if Massachu- 
setts, following her through a stated line of con- 
duct, chooses to take the last step which separates 
her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will 
neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her 
back ; but will say to her, God-speed, in memory of 
the kind associations which once existed between 
her and the other States. 

I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general 
feeling of my constituents toward yours. I am sure 
I feel no hostility to you, senators from the North. 
I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp 
discussion there may have been between us, to 
whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, 
I wish you well ; and such, I am sure, is the feeling 
of the people whom I represent toward those whom 
you represent. I therefore feel that I but express 
their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for 
peaceful relations with you, tho' we must part. They 
may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as 
they have been in the past, if you so will it. The 
reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the 
country; and if you will have it thus, we will in- 
voke the God of our fathers, who delivered them 
from the power of the lion, to protect us from the 
ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in 
God, and in our firm hearts and strong arms, we will 
vindicate the right as best we may. 

In the course of my service here, associated at 
different times with a great variety of senators, I 



143 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

see now around me some with whom I have served 
long; there have been points of collision; but what- 
ever of offense there has been to me, I leave here; 
I carry with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever 
offense I have given which has not been redressed, 
or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I 
have, senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer 
you my apology for any pain which, in heat of 
discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencum- 
bered of the remembrance of any injury received, 
and having discharged the duty of making the only 
reparation in my power for any injury offered. 

Mr. President and Senators, having made the 
announcement which the occasion seemed to me to 
require, it only remains for me to bid you a final 
adieu. 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA^ 

To conciliate the Jews, whom Paul had angered by hid 
bold speaking, the Roman governor, Felix, had kept him in 
prison for two years. When Pontius Festus took Felix' place, 
however, he had Paul brought before him, and on Paul's 
appealing to the judgment of Caesar, prepared to send him to 
Rome. As King Agrippa came to visit him at this time, how- 
ever, Festus placed Paul before his noble guest. Then 
Agrippa said unto Paul: 

Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. 

Then Paul stretched out his hand, and answered for himself 
with such effect that Agrippa said to him, "Almost thou per- 
suadest me to be a Christian," and to Festus later, "This man 
might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed unto 
Caesar." 

I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I 
shall answer for myself this day before thee touch- 
ing all the things whereof I am accused of the 
Jews : Especially because I know thee to be expert 
in all customs and questions which are among the 
Jews : wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. 
My manner of life from my youth, which was at 
the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know 
all the Jews ; which knew me from the beginning, 
if they would testify, that after the most straitest 
sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. And now 
I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise 
made of God unto our fathers : unto which promise 

^The group of short speeches from the Scriptures are 
included in this volume as examples of vivid imagery and 
rare choice of words. 

143 



144 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and 
night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King 
Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. 

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with 
you, that God should raise the dead? 

I verily thought with myself that I ought to do 
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of 
Nazareth. Which thing I did also in Jerusalem : 
and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, hav- 
ing received authority from the chief priests; and 
when the}^ were put to death, I gave my voice 
against them. And I punished them oft in every 
vSynagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme ; and 
being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted 
them even unto strange cities. Whereupon as I 
went to Damascus with authority and commission 
from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in 
the way a light from heaven, above the brightness 
of the sun, shining round about me and them which 
journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen 
to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and 
saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul,why perse- 
cutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against 
the pricks. 

And I said. Who art thou. Lord? 

And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. 
But rise, and stand upon thy feet; for I have ap- 
peared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a 
minister and a witness both of those things which 
thou hast seen, and of those things in the which 
I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the 



PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA 145 

people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I 
send thee. To open their eyes, and to turn them 
from darkness to light, and from the power of 
Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness 
of sins, and inheritance among them which are 
sanctified by faith that is in me. 

Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not dis- 
obedient unto the heavenly vision ; but shewed first 
unto them of Damascas, and at Jerusalem, and 
throughout the coast of Judea, and then to the Gen- 
tiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and 
do works meet for repentance. For these causes 
the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about 
to kill me. 

Having obtained help of God, I continue unto this 
day, witnessing both to small and great, saying 
none other things than those which the prophets 
and Moses did say should come: That Christ 
should suffer, and that he should be the first that 
should rise from the dead, and should shew light 
unto the people and to the Gentiles. — Acts 26 : 1-23. 



PAUL AT MARS HILL 

Paul, on one of his missionary journeys, came to Athens, 
where he was received with eager curiosity. Presently some 
philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered 
him, and after arguing a while, took him to Mars' Hill, and 
asked him to expound his views more fully. Then Paul stood 
in the midst of Mars' Hill, and said : 

Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things 
ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and 
beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this 
inscription, To the unknown God. Whom, there- 
fore, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 
God, that made the world and all things therein, 
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands ; neither is wor- 
shipped with men's hands, as though he needed any- 
thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath and 
all things; and hath made of one blood all nations 
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and 
hath determined the times before appointed, and 
the bounds of their habitation; that they might 
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him 
and find him, though he be not far from every one 
of us ; For in him we live and move, and have our 
being; as certain also of your own poets have said, 
for we are also his offspring. 

Forasmuch, then, as we are the oflfspring of God, 
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like 

147 



148 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

unto gold or silver or stone, graven by art of man's 
device. And the times of this ignorance God 
winked at; but now commandeth all men every- 
where to repent ; because he hath appointed a day 
in the which he will judge the world in righteous- 
ness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof 
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he 
hath raised him from the dead. — ActslQ: 22-31. 



NATHAN'S PARABLE OF THE EWE LAMB 

King David wished to marry the wife of Uriah, one of his 
generals, and in order to carry out his wishes as quickly as 
possible, had Uriah set in "the forefront of the hottest battle," 
an honorable position which was almost certain death. Uriah 
was killed, and David married his widow as soon as the law 
allowed. But the thing that David had done displeased the 
Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan unto David, and he said 
unto him : 

There were two men in one city: the one rich, 
and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding 
many flocks and herds : But the poor man had noth- 
ing save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought 
and nourished up; and it grew up together with 
him, and with his children; it did eat of his own 
meat, and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, 
and was unto him as a daughter. 

And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and 
he spared to take of his own flock and of his own 
herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was come 
unto him ; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed 
it for the man that was come to him. 

Then the angry king demanded the name of the 
rich man, that he might be punished. And Nathan 
said to David, Thou art the man. — // Samuel, 12: 
1-12. 



149 



TERTULLUS' SPEECH AGAINST PAUL 

The Apostle Paul, because of his bold speaking in Jerusalem, 
was in danger of being killed by the Jews, but was rescued 
by the Romans and sent to the Roman governor, Felix, at 
Caesarea. Here he was tried, an orator named Tertullus being 
his chief accuser. And when Paul was called forth, Tertullus 
began to accuse him, saying: 

Seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, and 
that very worthy deeds are done unto this nation 
by thy providence, we accept it always, and in all 
places, most noble Felix, with all thankfulness. 
Notwithstanding, that I be not further tedious to 
thee, I pray thee that thou wouldest hear us of thy 
clemency a few words. 

For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, 
and a mover of sedition among all the Jews through- 
out the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the 
Nazarenes ; who also hath gone about to profane the 
temple : whom we took and would have judged ac- 
cording to our law. But the chief captain Lysias 
came upon us, and with great violence took him 
away out of our hands, commanding his accusers to 
come unto thee; by examining of whom thyself 
mayest take knowledge of all these things whereof 
we accuse him. — Acts 24. 2-8. 



151 



PAUL'S REPLY TO TERTULLUS 

In answer to the speech made against him by Tertullus, be- 
fore the Roman governor, Felix, Paul, after that the gover- 
nor had beckoned him to speak, answered : 

Forasmuch as I know that thou hast been of many- 
years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheer- 
fully answer for myself; because that thou mayest 
understand that there are yet but twelve days since 
I went up to Jerusalem for to worship. And they 
neither found me in the temple disputing with any 
man, neither raising up the people, neither in the 
synagogues, nor in the city ; neither can they prove 
the things whereof they now accuse me. 

But this I confess unto thee, that after the way 
which they call heresy so worship I the God of my 
fathers, believing all things which are written in 
the law and in the prophets : and have hope toward 
God, which they themselves also allow, that there 
shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just 
and unjust. And herein do I exercise myself, to 
have always a conscience void of oflfense toward 
God and toward man. 

Now, after many years I came to bring alms to my 
nation and offerings. Whereupon certain Jews 
from Asia found me purified in the temple, neither 
with multitude, nor with tumult. Who ought to 
have been here before thee, and object, if they had 

153 



154 EXTEMPORANEOUS vSPEAKING 

aught against me. Or else let these same here say, 
if they have found any evil doing in me, while I 
stood before the council, except it be for this one 
voice, that I cried standing among them, touching 
the resurrection of the dead I am called in question 
by you this day.— ^c^^ 24: 10-21. 



JULIA WARD HOWE 

CHARLES W. ELIOT 

Remarks of Charles W. Eliot at the obsequies of Julia 
Ward Howe. 

This is not the time or place for studied eulogy, 
nor can any single voice express the depth of feel- 
ing that has drawn this company together. We 
are gathered here simply to bring our tribute of 
gratitude and reverence. Each one of us has some 
particular reason for grateful appreciation; but, 
whatever may be the separate and individual ties 
that have bound us in love and honor to Mrs. Howe, 
all of us alike share the impression of the richness 
and abundance of her nature and the prodigality cf 
her gifts. 

The Scripture phrase which one thinks of in con- 
nection with this life is the word of the Master, "I 
am come that ye may have life and have it more 
abundantly." This is a career that speaks to us 
of the abundance of life, of richness of experience, 
of completed roundness of character and achieve- 
ment, of rare gifts nobly used. Here was a life rich 
in aspiration and accomplishment, rich in love given 
and received, rich in widespread and penetrating 
influence, a life radiant with encouragement to the 
end. 

155 



156 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

She passed through the changeful experiences of 
more than ninety fruitful years, — the happy days of 
sheltered childhood, the years of brilliant and beau- 
tiful youth, the sacred obligations of wife and 
mother, the varied experiences of ceaseless philan- 
thropic labors, the fascinating diversity of social 
relationships, the applause of listening thousands, 
the accumulated honors of age. She enriched our 
literature. She inspired our patriotism. She up- 
built our ideals alike of domestic fidelity and hap- 
piness and of public-spirited service. She was in- 
terested in everything, — in nature, in events, in per- 
sons, in causes, in truth. She loved the New Eng- 
land landscape and delightedly explored the mys- 
terious processes of the world of nature, its beau- 
tiful adaptations, its precise and orderly laws. She 
was interested in the welfare of all her fellow-be- 
ings, ready to rejoice with the glad, eager to help 
the down-trodden and oppressed everywhere. She 
was interested in philosophy aiid pursued truth all 
her days, calmly, but eagerly. She found truths that 
sustained her in all the vicissitudes of experience. 
She had confidence in goodness, in its reality, its 
permanence, its power to conquer evil. She h 
confidence in love as the supreme reality. 

She believed in conscientious work and never 
despaired of a cause because it was unpopular. She 
had an overflowing sympathy, broad as humanity, 
including white and black, Greek and Armenian, 
bond and free. Her mind was affirmative. She 
said "Yes" more often than she said "No." She 



JULIA WARD HOWE 157 

had faith, not opinions or dead beliefs, but faith 
— a faith which saw God present in nature, present 
in Providence, present in the souls of men; which 
found Him in all changes, in all joys and sorrows, 
in the immediate duty of the hour, in the large vis- 
ions of the ages. 

Mrs. Howe enjoyed all the privileges of the abun- 
dant life while she avoided its perils. Many a 
scholar there is to whom knowledge has come, but 
from whom wisdom has stayed away, who has 
grown less human as his learning increased; but 
with Mrs. Howe experience was always applied; it 
was sacred as a gift of God, and its purpose was to 
enlarge serviceableness, to multiply points of con- 
tact with the needs of humanity. 

Her life was abundant in friendship and in oub- 
lic and private honor, but she depended neither 
upon praise nor blame. She was far from insensible 
to the admiration that surrounded her, but it never 
spoiled her. She accepted her place in people's 
hearts simply and naturally, thankfully recognized 
her privileges and trusted the obligations they im- 
posed to keep her from vainglory. No lot is too 
rich, no gifts too abundant for a soul that enters 
into its privileges full of humility before God, love 
for humanity and deep desire of helpfulness. 

She lived always in the inspiration of great con- 
victions and with a happy trust in the heart of the 
universe. But her spiritual gifts were not luxuries 
for her own use, but trusts for her fellowmen. Her 



158 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

thought each day was not what the world could 
do for her, but what she could do for the world. 

She found the joy of life in the use of her rare en- 
dowments. Hers was the gift of humor. Many a 
cloud was driven away by the bright spirit of 
laughter. Hers was the gift of bounteous, all-em- 
bracing hospitality — of mind and heart and home. 
She had a real democracy of soul which counted 
nothing human as foreign to her. Hers was the gift 
of interpretation. She knew how to turn sight into 
insight. She could discover the possibilities of poe- 
try in the meanest events and emergencies. Piers 
was the gift of communication, the power of solv- 
ing and persuasive speech. She transmitted that 
which she received. She could say in her prayer, 
''The glory thou hast given me I have given to 
them.'** 

She found the rewards of life in life itself, in the 
enrichment of experience, the new opportunities of 
attainment and service. Her good obtained was 
only tidings of something better. The richest joy 
of her life was the discovery of her capacity to 
inspire and impart life. 

Too often we have been told thai the Christian 
life is one of renunciation and self-denial, the giving 
up of pleasures or of freedom of thought and action. 
That was not her way of looking at things. The 
Christian ideal to her was not one of negation, but 
of appreciation ; not of renunciation, but of the use 
of the gifts of God. Religion to her meant not sub- 
traction, but addition ; not diminution of power, but 



JULIA WARD HOWE 159 

multiplication of freedom and power and joy. To 
accept the privilege of life with an alert body, an 
open mind, a sensitive imagination, and a stead- 
fast will, that was to her the Father's business in 
which she had a partnership. 

I think not only of the abundance of this life, but 
of its perfect poise, — a quality which grows more 
and more beautiful as we tire of the fantastic and 
one-sided types of character which the world often 
admires. Hers was not only fulness of life, but 
symmetry of life. She was expectant without im- 
patience, progressive, but always ready to wait, 
full of confidence, but never arrogant, serene, but 
enthusiastic. 

So much of the noblest life disappoints us with 
its partialness. So many people we admire are 
great only upon certain sides and in other aspects 
are comparatively small. The more do we value a 
human life rich and full and strong all around. Here 
was life where the length and breadth and height 
were equal. By length of life I do not mean its 
mere duration, but the reaching on and out of a 
soul on the lines of its special powers, the impulse 
of a life toward the ends that it was meant to serve. 
The breadth of a life is its outreach in human sym- 
pathy, and the height of a life is its reach upward, 
its consciousness of divine realities, its sense of 
communion with and commission from God. Length 
without breadth may be hard and narrow; breadth 
without length may be thin and shallow; length 
and breadth without height may be flat and un- 



160 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

profitable. Here was a soul which conceived dis- 
tinct purposes, yet which found in its earnest ef- 
forts to fulfill its own career the interpretation of 
the careers of other souls and the transfiguration 
of its own experience. 

The secret of her amazing vitality and widespread 
usefulness was that she kept always in contact with 
the real and permanent sources of power. The dy- 
namic of duty and faith and love worked through 
her. The subtle mystery of the life eternal flowed 
through her nature and her experience out into the 
complicated mechanism of the life of the world 
about her. 

With glad hearts we have all remarked the ex- 
ceptional vitality of her powers in old age. That 
meant simply that she had begun to live the eternal 
life here and now, the kind of life that does not 
decay or change, the life which is not merely future 
existence, but present renewal in the Spirit. 

Not long ago she said to her beloved minister, 
Dr. Ames: "The lower I drain the cup of life, the 
sweeter it grows. All the sugar is at the bottom." 
Her graceful verse repeats the same satisfaction : 

"1 have made a voyage upon a golden river, 
'Neath clouds of opal and of amethyst. 
Along its banks bright shapes were moving ever, 
And threatening shadows melted into mist. 

My journey nears its close: in some still haven 
My bark shall find its anchorage of rest, 

When the kind Hand, which every good has given, 
Opening with wider grace, shall give the best." 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 

JAMES A. GARFIELD 

On April 15, 1865, James A. Garfield, from the balcony of 
the New York Custom House, quieted a mob frenzied by the 
news of President Lincoln's assassination by this brief and 
remarkable utterance : 

"Fellow citizens : Clouds and darkness are around 
Him ; His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds ; 
justice and judgment are the establishment of His 
throne; mercy and truth shall go before His face! 

"Fellow citizens, God reigns, and the Government 
at Washington lives!" 



161 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 

WOODROW WILSOiSr 

Address of Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New 
Jersey, in the Auditorium, Denver, Col., on the occasion of 
the tercentenary celebration of the translation of the Bible 
into the English language, May 7, 191 1. 

s 

The thought that entered my mind first as I came 
into this great room this evening framed itself in a 
question — Why should this great body of people 
have come together upon this solemn night? There 
is nothing here to be seen. There is nothing delec- 
able here to be heard. Why should you run to- 
gether in a great host when all that is to be spoken 
of is the history of a familiar book? 

But as I have sat and looked upon this great 
body of people I have thought of the very suitable 
circumstance that here upon the platform sat a 
little group of ministers of the gospel lost in this 
great throng. 

I say the "suitable circumstance," for I come here 
to-night to speak of the Bible as the book of the 
people, not the book of the minister of the gospel, 
not the special book of the priest from which to set 
forth some occult, unknown doctrine withheld from 
the common understanding of men, but a great book 
of revelation — the people's book of revelation. For 
it seems to me that the Bible has revealed the peo- 

163 



164 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

pie to themselves. I wonder how many persons in 
this great audience realize the significance for Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples of the translation of the Bible 
into the English tongue. Up to the time of the 
translation of the Bible into English it was a 
book for long ages withheld from the perusal of 
the people of other languages and of other tongues, 
and not a little of the history of liberty lies 
in the circumstance that the moving sentences of 
this book were made familiar to the ears and the 
understanding of those peoples who have led man- 
kind in exhibiting the forms of government and 
the impulses of reform which have made for free- 
dom and for self-government among mankind. 

For this is a book which reveals men unto them- 
selves, not as creatures in bondage, not as men un- 
der human authority, not as those bidden to take 
counsel and command of any human source. It 
reveals every man to himself as a distinct moral 
agent, responsible not to men, not even to those 
men whom he has put over him in authority, but 
responsible through his own conscience to his Lord 
and Maker. Whenever a man sees this vision he 
stands up a free man, whatever may be the govern- 
ment under which he lives. If he sees beyond the 
circumstances of his own life. 

I heard a very eloquent sermon to-day from an 
honored gentleman who is with us to-night. He 
was speaking upon the efifect of a knowledge of the 
future life upon our conduct in this life. And it 
seemed to me that as I listened to him I saw the 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 165 

flames of those fires rekindled at which the martyrs 
died — died forgetful of their pain, with praise and 
thanksgiving upon their lips, that they had the op- 
portunity to render their testimony that this was 
not the life for which they had lived, but that there 
was a house builded in the heavens, not built of 
men but built of God, to the vision of which they 
had lifted their eyes as they passed through the 
world, which gave them courage to fear no man 
but to serve God. And I thought that all the 
records of heroism of the great things that had 
illustrated human life were summed up in the power 
of men to see that vision. 

Our present life, ladies and gentlemen, is a very 
imperfect and disappointing thing. We do not 
judge our own conduct in the privacy of our own 
closets by the standards of expediency by which 
we are daily and hourly governed. We know that 
there is a standard set for us in the heavens, a stand- 
ard revealed to us in this book which is the fixed and 
eternal standard by which we judge ourselves, and 
as we read this book it seems to us that the pages of 
our own hearts are laid open before us for our own 
perusal. This is the people's book of revelation, reve- 
lation of themselves not alone, but revelation of life 
and of peace. You know that human life is a con- 
stant struggle. For a man who has lost the sense of 
struggle, life has ceased. 

I believe that my confidence in the judgment of 
the people in matters political is based upon my 
knowledge that the men who are struggling are the 



166 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

men who know ; that the men who are in the midst 
of the great effort to keep themselves steady in 
the pressure and rush of life are the men who know 
the significance of the pressure and the rush of 
life, and that they, the men on the make, are the 
men to whom to go for your judgments of what life 
is and what its problems are. And in this book 
there is peace simply because we read here the ob- 
ject of the struggle. No man is satisfied with him- 
self as the object of the struggle. 

There is a very interesting phrase that constantly 
comes to our lips which we perhaps do not often 
enough interpret in its true meaning. We see 
many a young man start out in life with apparently 
only this object in view — to make name and fame 
and power for himself, and there comes a time of 
maturity and reflection when we say of him, '*He 
has come to himself." When may I say that I 
have come to myself? Only when I have come to 
recognize my true relations with the rest of the 
world. We speak of a man losing himself in a 
desert. If you reflect a moment you will see that 
is the only thing he has not lost. He himself is 
there. What he means when he says that he has 
lost himself is that he has lost all the rest of the 
world. He has nothing to steer by. He does not 
know where any human habitation lies. He does 
not know where any beaten path and highway is. 
If he could establish his relationship with any- 
thing else in the world he would have found him- 
self. Let it serve as a picture. 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 167 

A man has found himself when he has found his 
relation to the rest of the universe, and here is 
the book in which those relations are set forth. 
And so when you see a man going along the high- 
ways of life with his gaze lifted above the road, 
lifted to the sloping ways in front of him, then be 
careful of that man and get out of his way. He 
knows the kingdom for which he is bound. He has 
seen the revelation of himself and of his relations to 
mankind. He has seen the revelations of his rela- 
tion to God and his Maker and therefore he has 
seen his responsibility in the world. This is the 
revelation of life and of peace. I do not know that 
peace lies in constant accommodation. I was once 
asked if I would take part in a great peace con- 
ference, and I said, "Yes, if I may speak in favor 
of war" — not the war which we seek to avoid, not 
the senseless and useless and passionate shedding 
of human blood, but the only war that brings peace, 
the war with human passions and the war with 
human wrong — the war which is that untiring and 
unending process of reform from which no man can 
refrain and get peace. 

No man can sit down and withhold his hands 
from the warfare against wrong and get peace out 
of his acquiescence. The most solid and satisfying 
peace is that which comes from this constant spirit- 
ual warfare, and there are times in the history of 
nations when they must take up the crude instru- 
ments of bloodshed in order to vindicate spiritual 
conceptions. For liberty is a spiritual conception. 



168 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

and when men take up arms to set other men free, 
there is something sacred and holy in the warfare. 
I will not cry ''Peace" so long as there is sin and 
wrong in the world. And this great book does not 
teach any doctrine of peace so long as there is sin 
to be combatted and overcome in one's own heart 
and in the great moving force of human society. 

And so it seems to me that we must look upon the 
Bible as the great charter of the human soul — as the 
"Magna Charta" of the human soul. You know the 
interesting circumstances which gave rise to the 
Magna Charta. You know the moving scene that 
was enacted upon the heath at Runnymede. You 
know how the barons of England, representing the 
people of England — for they consciously represented 
the people of England — met upon that historic spot 
and parleyed with John the king. They said : "We 
will come to terms with you here." They said: 
"There are certain inalienable rights of English- 
speaking men which you must observe. They are 
not given by you, they cannot be taken away by 
you. Sign your name here to this parchment upon 
which these rights are written and we are your 
subjects. Refuse to put your name to this docu- 
ment and we are your sworn enemies. Here are 
our swords to prove it." 

The franchises of human liberty made the basis 
of a bargain with a king! There are kings upon 
the pages of Scripture, but do you think of any 
king in Scripture as anything else than a mere man? 
There was the great King David, of a line blessed 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 169 

because the line from which should spring our Lord 
and Saviour, a man marked in the history of man- 
kind as the chosen instrument of God to do justice 
and exalt righteousness in the people. 

But what does this Bible do for David? Does it 
utter eulogies upon him? Does it conceal his faults 
and magnify his virtues? Does it set him up as a 
great statesman would be set up in a modern bi- 
ography? No, the book in which his annals are 
written strips the mask from David, strips every 
shred of counterfeit and concealment from him and 
shows him as indeed an instrument of God, but a 
sinful and selfish man, and the verdict of the Bible 
is that David, like other men, was one day to stand 
naked before the judgment seat of God and be 
judged not as a king, but as a man. Isn't this the 
book of the people? Is there any man in this Holy 
Scripture who is exempted from the common stand- 
ard and judgment? How these pages teem with the 
masses of mankind ! Are these the annals of the 
great? These are the annals of the people — of the 
common run of men. 

The New Testament is the history of the life and 
the testimony of common men who rallied to the 
fellowship of Jesus Christ and who by their faith 
and preaching remade a world that was under the 
thrall of the Roman army. This is the history of 
the triumph of the human spirit in the persons of 
humble men. And how many sorts of men march 
across the pages, how infinite is the variety of 
human circumstance and of human dealings and of 



170 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

human heroism and love! Is this a picture of ex- 
traordinary things? This is a picture of the com- 
mon life of mankind. It is a mirror held up for 
men's hearts, and it is in this mirror that we marvel 
to see ourselves portrayed. 

How like to the vScripture is all great literature! 
What is it that entrances us when we read or wit- 
ness a play of Shakespeare? It is the consciousness 
that this man, this all-observing mind, saw men of 
every cast and kind as they were in their habits as 
they lived. And as passage succeeds passage we 
seem to see the characters of ourselves and our 
friends portrayed by this ancient writer, and a play 
of Shakespeare is just as modern to-day as upon 
the day it was penned and first enacted. And the 
Bible is without age or date or time. It is a pic- 
ture of the human heart displayed for all ages and 
for all sorts and conditions of men. Moreover, the 
Bible does what is so invaluable in human life — it 
classifies moral values. It apprises us that men 
are not judged according to their wits, but accord- 
ing to their characters. 

That the last of every man's reputation is his 
truthfulness, his squaring his conduct with the 
standards that he knew to be the standards of 
purity and rectitude. 

How many a man we appraise, ladies and gentle- 
men, as great to-day whom we do not admire as 
noble! A man may have great power and small 
character. And the sweet praise of mankind lies 
not in their admiration of the smartness with which 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 171 

the thing was accomplished, but in that lingering 
love which apprises men that one of their fellows 
has gone out of life to his own reckoning, where 
he is sure of the blessed verdict : "Well done, good 
and faithful servant." 

Did you ever look about you in any great city, in 
any great capitol, at the statues which have been 
erected in it? To whom are these statues erected? 
Are they erected to the men who have piled for- 
tunes about them? I do not know of any such 
statue anywhere unless after he had accumulated 
his fortune the man bestowed it in beneficence upon 
his fellowmen and alongside of him will stand a 
statue of another meaning, for it is easy to give 
money away. I heard a friend of mine say that the 
standard of generosity was not the amount you 
gave away, but the amount you had left. It is easy 
to give away of your abundance, but look at the 
next statue, the next statue and the next in the 
market-place of great cities and whom will you 
see? You will see here a soldier who gave his life 
to serve, not his own ends, but the interests and 
the purposes of his country. 

I would be the last, ladies and gentlemen, to dis- 
parage any of the ordinary occupations of life, but 
I want to ask you this question : Did you ever see 
anybody who had lost a son hang up his yardstick 
over the mantel-piece? Have you not seen many 
families who had lost their sons hang up their mus- 
kets and their swords over the mantel-piece? What 
is the difference between the yardstick and the 



172 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

musket? There is nothing but perfect honor in the 
use of the yardstick, but the yardstick was used for 
the man's own interest, for his own self-support. 
It was used merely to fulfil the necessary exigencies 
of life, whereas the musket was used to serve no 
possible purpose of his own. He took every risk 
without any possibility of profit. The musket is the 
symbol of self-sacrifice and the yardstick is not. 
A man will instinctively elevate the one as the 
symbol of honor and never dream of using the other 
as a symbol of distinction. 

Doesn't that cut pretty deep, and don't you know 
why the soldier has his monument as against the 
civilian's ? The civilian may have served his State — 
he also — and here and there 3^ou may see a states- 
man's statue, but the civilian has generally served 
his country — has often served his country, at any 
rate — with some idea of promoting his own inter- 
ests, whereas the soldier has everything to lose and 
nothing but the gratitude of his fellowmen to win. 

Let every man pray that he may in some true 
sense be a soldier of fortune, that he may have 
the good fortune to spend his energies and his life 
in the service of his fellowmen in order that he may 
die to be recorded upon the rolls of those who have 
not thought of themselves but have thought of those 
whom they served. Isn't this the lesson of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ? Am I not reminding 
you of these common judgments of our life, simply 
expounding to you this book of revelation, this 
book which reveals the common man to himself, 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 173 

which strips life of its disguises and its pretences 
and elevates those standards by which alone true 
greatness and true strength and true valor are 
assessed? 

Do you wonder, therefore, that when I was asked 
what my theme this evening would be I said it 
would be "The Bible and Progress"? We do not 
judge progress by material standards. America 
is not ahead of the other nations of the world be- 
cause she is rich. Nothing makes America great 
except her thoughts, except her ideals, except her 
acceptance of those standards of judgment which 
are written large upon these pages of revelation. 
America has all along claimed the distinction of 
setting this example to the civilized world — that 
men were to think of one another, that governments 
were to be set up for the service of the people, that 
men were to be judged by these moral standards 
which pay no regard to rank or birth or conditions, 
but which assess every man according to his single 
and individual value. This is the meaning of this 
charter of the human soul. This is the standard by 
which men and nations have more and more come 
to be judged. And so the form has consisted in 
nothing more nor less than this — in trying to con- 
form actual conditions, in trying to square actual 
laws with the right judgments of human conduct 
and more than liberty. 

That is the reason that the Bible has stood at the 
back of progress. That is the reason that reform 
has come not from the top but from the bottom. 



174 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

If you are ever tempted to let a government reform 
itself, I ask you to'look back in the pages of history 
and find me a government that reformed itself. If 
you are ever tempted to let a 'party attempt to re- 
form itself I ask you to find a party that ever re- 
formed itself, 

A tree is not nourished by its bloom and by its 
fruit. It is nourished by its roots, which are down 
deep in the common and hidden soil, and every pro- 
cess of purification and rectification comes from the 
bottom — not from the top. It comes from the 
masses of struggling human beings, It comes from 
the instinctive efforts of millions of human hearts 
trying to beat their way up into the light and 
into the hope of the future. 

Parties are reformed and governments are cor- 
rected by the impulses coming out of the hearts of 
those who never exercised authority and never or- 
ganized parties. Those are the sources of strength, 
and I pray God that these sources may never cease 
to be spiritualized by the immortal subjections of 
these words of inspiration of the Bible. 

If any statesman sunk in the practices which de- 
base a nation will but read this single book he will 
go to his prayers abashed. Do you not realize, 
ladies and gentlemen, that there is a whole litera- 
ture in the Bible? It is not one book, but a score of 
books. Do you realize what literature is? I am 
sometimes sorry to see the great classics of our 
English literature used in the schools as text-books, 
because I am afraid that little children may gain 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 175 

the impression that these are lonnal lessons to be 
learned. There is no great book in any language, 
ladies and gentlemen, that is not the spontaneous 
outpouring of some great mind or the cry of some 
great heart. And the reason that poetry moves us 
more than prose does is that it is the rhythmic and 
passionate voice of some great spirit that has seen 
more than his fellowmen can see. 

I have found more true politics in the poets of 
the English-speaking race than I have ever found 
in all the formal treatises on political science. There 
is more of the spirit of our own institutions in a 
few lines of Tennyson than in all the text-books on 
government put together: 

"A nation still, the rulers and the ruled, 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 
Some patient force to change them when we will. 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd." 

Can you find summed up the manly, self-helping 
spirit of Saxon liberty anywhere better than in those 
few lines? Men afraid of nobody, afraid of nothing 
but their own passions, on guard against being 
caught unaware by their own sudden impulses and 
so getting their grapple upon life in firm-set insti- 
tutions, some reverence for the laws themselves 
have made, some patience, not passionate force, to 
change them when they will, some civic manhood 
firm against the crowd. Literature, ladies and gen- 
tlemen, is revelation of the human spirit, and within 
the covers of this one book is a whole lot of litera- 



176 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

ture, prose and poetry, history and rhapsody, the 
sober narration of the ecstasy of human excitement — 
things that ring in one's ears like songs never to be 
forgotten. And so I say, let us never forget that 
these deep sources, these wells of inspiration, 
must always be our sources of refreshment and of re- 
newal. Then no man can put unjust power upon 
us. We shall live in that chartered liberty in which 
a man sees the things unseen, in which he knows 
that he is bound for a country in which there are no 
questions mooted any longer of right or wrong. 
Can you imagine a man who did not believe these 
words, who did not believe in the future life, stand- 
ing up and doing what has been the heart and cen- 
ter of liberty always — standing up before the king 
himself and saying, ''Sir, you have sinned and done 
wrong in the sight of God and I am his messenger 
of judgment to pronounce upon you the condemna- 
tion of Almighty God. You may silence me, you 
may send me to my reckoning with my Maker, but 
you cannot silence or reverse the judgment." That 
is what a man feels whose faith is rooted in the 
Bible. And the man whose faith is rooted in the 
Bible knows that reform cannot be stayed, that the 
finger of God that moves upon the face of the na- 
tions is against every man that plots the nation's 
downfall or the people's deceit ; that these men are 
simply groping and staggering in their ignorance 
to a fearful day of judgment and that whether one 
generation witnesses it or not, the glad day of reve- 
lation and of freedom will come in which men will 



THE BIBLE AND PROGRESS 177 

sing by the host of the coming of the Lord in His 
glory, and all of those will be forgotten, those little, 
scheming, contemptible creatures that forgot the 
image of God and tried to frame men according 
to the image of the Evil One. 

You may remember that allegorical narrative in 
the Old Testament of those who searched through 
one cavern after another cutting the holes in the 
walls and going into the secret places where all 
sorts of noisome things were worshipped. Men do 
not dare to let the sun shine in upon such things 
and upon such occupations and worship. And so I 
say there will be no halt to the great movement of 
the armies of reform until men forget their God, 
until they forget this charter of their liberty. Let 
no man suppose that progress can be divorced from 
religion, or that there is any other platform for the 
ministers of reform than the platform written in the 
utterances of our Lord and Saviour. 

America was born a Christian nation. America 
was born to exemplify that devotion to the ele- 
ments of righteousness which are derived from the 
revelations of Holy Scripture. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very simple thing 
to ask of you. I ask of every man and woman in 
this audience that from this night on they will 
realize that part of the destiny of America lies in 
their daily perusal of this great book of revelations 
— that if they would see America free and pure they 
will make their own spirits free and pure by this 
baptism of the Holy vScripture. 



INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 

]^ICHOLAS MUEKAY BUTLER 

Excerpts from opening address of Nicholas Murray Butler, 
the presiding officer at the Lake Mohonk Conference on 
International Arbitration, 1910. 

No well-informed observer is likely to deny that 
the cause which this conference is assembled to 
promote has made important progress during the 
past year. The several striking incidents which 
mark that progress — including, in particular, the 
identic circular note of Secretary Knox bearing date 
October 18, 1909, proposing the investment of the 
International Prize Court with the functions of a 
court of arbitral justice, and the hearty approval 
which the proposal has met; the public declaration 
of President Taft, made in New York on March 22, 
1910, that there are no questions involving the honor 
or the interests of a civilized nation which it may 
not with propriety submit to judicial determination ; 
the action of the Congress in making an appropria- 
tion for the Bureau of the Interparliamentary Union 
for the Promotion of International arbitration, thus 
committing the United States Government officially 
to that admirable undertaking; and, finally, the 
forthcoming submission to the arbitral tribunal at 
The Hague of the century-old controversy between 
Great Britain and the United States as to the New- 

179 



180 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

foundland fisheries — all these will be fully recounted 
here in the course of our present meeting. To those 
who are impatient for the attainment of our ideal 
we can only say that progress toward it is steadily 
making and that the chief forces now at work in 
the world, political, economic, and ethical, are co- 
operating with us to bring about its attainment. To 
those who fear that we may make progress too fast 
and that some measure of national security will be 
sacrificed in pushing forward to establish inter- 
national justice, we can only say that justice is itself 
the one real and continuing ground of security for 
both men and nations, and that heretofore in the 
history of mankind the devil has always been able 
to take care of his own cause without the necessary 
aid and comfort of the forces in the world that are 
aiming at the overthrow of the rule of any power 

but right 

There is a type of citizen who must be mentioned, 
because the type is numerous, influential, and im- 
portant. This is the type which holds the view that, 
of course, international arbitration is a thing greatly 
to be desired; of course, we must all hope for the 
day when that at present distant, impracticable, 
and wholly praiseworthy ideal shall be reached; 
but that, until that day — which is probably to be 
the Greek Kalends — we must continue to tax our 
great modern industrial nations, struggling as they 
are under the burdens of popular education, and 
of economic and social betterment, in order that 
death-dealing instrumentalities may be increased 



INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 181 

and multiplied, and the several nations thereby 
protected from invasion and attack. This procedure, 
so the curious argument runs, is to hasten the com- 
ing of international arbitration and to promote it. 
Civilized men, it appears, are to be shot or starved 
into agreeing to arbitrate. 

This point of view requires for adequate treat- 
ment not the arguments of a logician, but the 
pencil of a Tenniel or the caustic v^it of a Mr. 
Dooley. Look at the situation in the world to-day 
as this type of man presents it to us. Of course, the 
United States is a peaceful nation ; of course, Great 
Britain is a peaceful nation ; of course, Germany 
and France and Japan are peaceful nations ; but, 
therefore, because they propose to attack nobody 
they must so strengthen their defenses, so multiply 
their navies, and increase their armies that nobody 
can successfully attack them. Who, pray, is left 
to attack these peaceful and law-abiding nations if, 
as we are assured by everybody — both leaders of 
governments, the moulders of public opinion and 
the substantially unanimous press of the world — 
they do not propose to attack each other, unless it 
be an army of white bears from the newly-discov- 
ered North Pole or a procession of elephants and 
camelopards from the jungles of Central Africa? 
The gullibility of mankind was never more con- 
clusively demonstrated than by the widespread 
acceptance of this huge joke, which, unlike most 
other jokes, has to be paid for at a literally stu- 
pendous price. Children must go untaught, sani- 



182 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

tary inspection and regulation must go unprovided, 
better workingmen's dwellings must be postponed, 
provisions for recreation and enlightenment must 
be put off, conditions accompanying labor, poverty 
and old age must go indefinitely without ameliora- 
tion, in order that in this twentieth century men 
and nations, who, looking in the glass, call them- 
selves intelligent and practical, may support, main- 
tain, and propagate this stupendous joke! Either 
the whole world is being deluded by a witticism of 
cosmic proportions or some important persons are 
conspiring to tell an awful lie. 

One of the earliest questions recorded in history 
is the petulant query of Cain, "Am I my brother's 
keeper?" On the answer to this question all civili- 
zation depends. If man is not his brother's keeper, 
if he may slay and rob and ravage at will for his 
own advantage, whether that be personal or na- 
tional, then civilization becomes quite impossible. 
It is vain to attempt to divert us by analogies drawn 
from the past history of the race. Mankind has been 
climbing upward and neither standing on a level 
nor going down hill. Acts, policies and events 
which are easily explainable and in large part de- 
fensible in other days and under other conditions 
are neither explainable nor defensible now. The 
twentieth century cannot afford to receive its les- 
sons in morals, whether personal or national, from 
the fifteenth or the sixteenth. We are our brothers' 
keepers and they are ours. The whole world has 
become a brotherhood of fellow-citizens. The bar- 



INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 183 

riers of language are slowly breaking down ; wars of 
religion are almost unheard of; distance in space 
and time has been practically annihilated by steam 
and electricity ; trade is as easy today between New 
York and Calcutta or between London and Hong 
Kong as it once was between two neighboring shops 
in the bazaars of Damascus on either side of the 
street called Straight. What possible reason is there 
why the fundamental principles which civilization 
applies to the settlement of differences between in- 
dividuals cannot now be applied to the settlement 
of differences between nations? 

The United States has done so much to educate 
world opinion in the past century and a half that 
we may well be ambitious for it to do still more. 
We have shown that to all appearances a federal 
form of government, extended over a wide area and 
embracing many competing and sometimes conflict- 
ing interests, is practicable, and that it can survive 
even the severe shock of civil war. We have shown 
that under the guidance of a written constitution, 
judicially interpreted, there is room for national 
growth and expansion, for stupendous economic 
development, for absorption into the body politic 
of large numbers of foreign born, and for the preser- 
vation of civil liberty over a considerable period of 
time. Suppose now that during the next few 
decades it might be given to us to lead the way in 
demonstrating to the world that great sovereign 
nations, like federated states, may live and grow 
and do business together in harmony and unity, 



184 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

without strife or armed conflict, through the habit 
of submitting to judicial determination all ques- 
tions of difference as they may arise, the judicial 
decree when made to be supported and enforced 
— after the fashion in which judicial decrees are 
everywhere supported and enforced — by intelligent 
public opinion and by an international and neutral 
police. Might we not then be justified in believing 
that the place of our beloved country in history was 
secure? 

What more splendid foundation could there be 
upon which to build an enduring monument to the 
American people than their guarantee and preserva- 
tion of civil liberty, together with national develop- 
ment at home, and their leadership in establishing 
the world's peace, together with international de- 
velopment all around the globe? Dare we leave 
anything undone to put our own land in the place 
of highest honor by reason of its contribution to 
the establishment of the world's peace and order 
and happiness through the rule of justice — a rule 
accepted because it is just and bowed down to be- 
cause it is right? What picture of glory and of 
honor has the advocate of brute force to offer us 
in exchange for this? 

The great movement in which we are engaged 
is all part and parcel of a new way of life. It means 
that we must enter with fulness of appreciation into 
the activities and interests of peoples other than 
ourselves; that we must always and everywhere 
emulate the best they have to teach us and shun 



INTERNATIONAL CONCILIATION 185 

the worst; that we must answer in no uncertain 
tones that we are our brothers' keepers; and that, 
as with men so with nations, the path of justice, of 
integrity, and of fair dealing is the true path of 
honor. Let us see to it that we Americans tread 
steadily in it. 



FUTURE IN CHEMISTRY 

WILDER D. BANCEOFT 

An address by Professor Wilder D. Bancroft at the dedica- 
tion of the Chemistry Building of the College of the City of 
New York, May 14, 1908. 

The future in chemistry! No two people agree 
as to what the future development of chemistry is 
to be, and it is probable that any one man would 
give you a different answer if the question were 
put to him at an interval of five years. Depending 
on whom you ask, you will be told that the really 
important thing is organic chemistry, inorganic 
chemistry, physical chemistry, electrochemistry, 
photochemistry, physiological chemistry, indus- 
trial chemistry, or what not. I could even name 
one man who has believed all these things at 
one time or another. It is easy to see that pre- 
dictions like these are the results of opinion that 
exists. The same diversity of opinion as to what is 
fundamentally important appears very clearly when 
we remember that the Carnegie Institution is not 
making any large grant to chemistry, for the simple 
reason that the chemists of the country cannot 
agree as to what problem or group of problems 
should be attacked. My task to-day is to point out 
to you what the real future of chemistry will be and 

187 



188 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

to make you see that my prophecy is the one that 
will come true. 

We shall reach our goal most quickly by what is 
at first sight an indirect way. At the dedication of 
a chemical, physical, engineering, geological, bio- 
logical, or medical laboratory, it is customary to 
have addresses, even as now ; and it is the orthodox 
thing to say the most important of all the sciences 
is the science to be studied in that laboratory, 
whether it be chemistry, physics, engineering, 
geology, biology, medicine, or something else. I 
sympathize fully with the practice and I intend to 
do the same thing myself to-day. You will admit, 
however, that the people who make addresses of 
this type at the dedication of laboratories cannot 
all be right when they talk like that. Some of them 
must be exaggerating just a little, and in order to 
acquit the chemist of any such a charge, we must 
first consider the relation of chemistry to the other 
sciences. 

We will define chemistry as a study of all prop- 
erties and changes of matter depending on the 
nature of the substances concerned. This definition 
is wider than the usual one. It is one that I have 
used for years, and it is one which Sir William 
Ramsay suggested but did not make in his "Intro- 
duction to the Study of Physical Chemistry." It 
follows from this definition that physics is a sub- 
division of chemistry; an important and interesting 
subdivison, it is true, but only a subdivision. Chem- 
istry includes all of what is known as physics except 



FUTURE IN CHEMISTRY 189 

the law of gravitation, the laws of motion, and a 
few other abstract formulations. Everything else 
that gives life and interest to physics is chemistry 
pure and simple. I admit that this point of view is 
not popular among my colleagues, the physicists, 
but their obejctions are natural enough without 
being valid. Physics was a flourishing science at 
the time when chemistry, in the narrower sense of 
the word, was of very little importance. In the 
case of anything that is expanding and developing, 
it seems to me axiomatic that you must have the 
part before we have the whole, and that in the 
first stages the part will seem the whole. In 1600 
the men of Great Britain were the whole of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. To-day they are only a part 
of it; an important part, it is true, but only a part. 
Let us try another illustration. As children we 
were told that "great oaks from little acorns grow." 
If you only have the acorn, of course, it is the im- 
portant thing; but later one sees that the acorn is 
merely an interesting subdivision or product of the 
oak, and that is all it is. We may, therefore, class 
physics as a subdivision of chemistry. 

When we come to engineering, it is clear that we 
are dealing with applied chemistry. If it were not 
for the specific properties of iron, copper, concrete, 
brick, etc., and of all the other materials of engineer- 
ing, there would be no such subject as engineering. 
Speaking in a broad sense we may say that engineer- 
ing is the art of making the structural properties of 
matter useful to man. 



190 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Geology is the study of the chemistry of the 
earth. This has been recognized for a long time, 
and though we speak of the Geophysical Laboratory 
at Washington, its work is geochemical in fact, 
though not in name. 

In biology of the present and future we are in- 
terested in the chemical changes in the living organ- 
isms due to heredity and environment. Growth is 
a chemical change. The internal and external struc- 
tures of plants and animals are the result of a series 
of chemical changes. After the first stage of identi- 
fication, enumeration, and classification has been 
passed, the interests of the biologist are essentially 
chemical, and the quality of his work is likely to in- 
crease as his methods become chemical. The work 
of Toeb in California is a striking instance of what 
may happen when a biologist realizes that his sub- 
ject is a subdivision of chemistry. 

In curative medicine we are dealing largely with 
the action of drugs. In preventive medicine we are 
dealing with inoculations, diet, exercise, and fresh 
air. In the first case we are checking and eliminat- 
ing an abnormal process, sickness, by the action of 
one set of chemicals on the system. In the second 
case we are preventing the occurrence of a disturb- 
ing chemical process, sickness, by the action of 
another set of chemicals on the system. Owing to 
the difficulties involved and to the number of vari- 
ables concerned, our knowledge of the chemistry of 
medicine is not yet what it should be ; but it is clear 
that real progress will be made just in so far as we 



FUTURE IN CHEMISTRY 191 

study physiology and medicine as subdivisions of 
chemistry. I cite as an instance the brilliant work 
of Arrhenius in the field of immuno-chemistry. 

I have tried to show you that physics, engineering, 
geology, biology, and medicine are all subdivisions 
of chemistry. My task is over. The future in 
chemistry will consist in the change from chemistry 
as a coordinate science to chemistry as the domi- 
nant science. With this in mind, can you wonder 
at the fascination which chemistry has for the 
chemist? Now you will see why I rejoice that 
to-day the world is to be the better for a well- 
equipped laboratory in the hands of a well-equipped 
staff. 



THE UNIVERSITY IS A DEMOCRACY 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

An address delivered at the installation of Edwin Anderson 
Alderman as President of the University of Virgipia, April 
13. 1905, by Nicholas Murray Butler, representing the univer- 
sities of the North. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — One of the most charm- 
ing of the shorter Dialogues of Plato has for its 
subject friendship. After subtle and amusing dis- 
cussions, you will remember, Socrates and his two 
young friends profess themselves unable to discover 
what is a friend ! If fools may rush in where angels 
fear to tread, shall we not say that intimate asso- 
ciation, complete confidence, and mtellectual sym- 
pathy are the sure bases of friendship between men? 
Then are we met to-day — some of us, I know, many 
of us, no doubt — to hail a friend, to bid him God- 
speed, and to stand at his side while he publicly 
consecrates himself to the service of an ideal. And 
than that ideal there is none loftier or more noble. 
It is the service of truth and of mankind, surrounded 
by all the uplift, all the vigor, and all the oppor- 
tunity of our American democracy. 

The human brain has conceived no finer career 
than that ofifered by a university in a democracy. 
No longer do universities, however beautiful their 
fabric, content themselves with "whispering from 

193 



194 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

their towers the last enchantments of the Middle 
Age," for they must busily explain to a new age 
the manifold enchantments of its own making. No 
longer do universities, however ancient their tradi- 
tions, carefully shun the practical, for they must 
ceaselessly teach that the truly practical is but the 
embodiment of those everlasting principles which 
have been since the world began. The shackles, 
too, are gone — the shackles theologic, the shackles 
philosophic, the shackles scientific. The truth has 
made us free. 

Our political liberty and our university freedom 
grew up side by side. The same promptings of the 
spirit that brought to pass the one gave us also 
the other. It is worth minding, too, that it was 
not blind passion, but untamed and reckless force, 
but reflective thought that sowed the seeds of both. 
Moreover, political liberty and university freedom 
have this in common — the making of men. Tyranny 
and censored thinking may conceivably make a 
man or two now and then, but they could never 
make men. And men, real men, with disciplined 
minds, with finely formed and tempered characters, 
with the power to grow by serving, are the best 
product of the ages; for with our political liberty 
and our universities does freedom exist. 

Consider for a moment what it is that our democ- 
racy demands of its universities. It demands a de- 
tachment which judges fairly, without an aloofness 
that fails to sympathize. It demands a progressive- 
ness which presses forward without a pace that 



UNIVERSITY A DEMOCRACY 195 

leaves appreciation breathless. It demands a scholar- 
ship which is solid and sure, without a pedantry 
that is sterile and suffocating. It demands a his- 
toric sense which interprets the present by the past, 
without an ancestor-worship that bows the head in 
contemplative awe. It demands a catholicity of 
spirit which bars no excellence without a super- 
ficial sentimentality that stops short of having con- 
victions. Out of these elements is the atmosphere 
of a university compounded — detachment, progress- 
iveness, scholarship, historic sense, catholicity. Is 
it possible for a democracy to pay too much honor 
to its universities? What life is better than a life 
which helps a university on its way? 

It is trite to say that universities are among 
the oldest of human institutions, yet it is worth 
repeating now and then. Universities are older 
than parliamentary government, older even than our 
familiar spoken tongues ; they are but a little 
younger than the Roman law and the Roman 
Church. Stately, then, they are, and wise with 
watching many men and many moods, as well as 
useful and skilful, too, both to inquire and to teach. 
In the beginning the universities never doubted the 
validity of their method; it was an all-conquering 
syllogistic logic. To-day the universities are little 
given to doubt the validity of that scientfic method 
which has displaced the syllogistic. It may be 
well for the confident modern to remember the 
errors of the equally confident scholar of the Middle 
Age and to profit by his example, if possible. If, 



196 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

as Socrates said, an unexamined life is not worth 
living, then surely an uncriticised method abounds 
in danger. The university that does not persistently 
examine the validity of its method; that does not 
question its assumptions; that does not, in other 
v^ords, pay to philosophy its just and necessary due, 
will not remain a university long. 

To a university in a democracy you come, old 
friend, as counselor and guide. The task is not a 
new one to your head and hand. Yonder in the old 
North State, and across the mountains in the Cres- 
ent City, where the mighty father of waters halts 
for a moment before ending his winding course, 
you have taken the reins and driven skilfully the 
chariot of scholarship and of service. To-day the 
scene is new. Here are fine traditions, noble ideals, 
brilliant achievement. May the passing years bring 
only glory to the nation's University that is set in 
the Old Dominion's crown, and which bears her 
splendid name, and only happiness and honor to the 
President, to whom to-day with high hope and sin- 
cere affection we bid Godspeed. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

GEORGE E. VINCENT 

George E. Vincent, President of the University of Minne- 
sota, succeeded Cyrus Northrop in October, 191 1. The fol- 
lowing speech is abridged from his inaugural address : 

The ceremonies of this hour mark not so much 
the coming* of a man as the beginning of a new 
phase in the life of the university. In the sweep 
of time most men are merged in the on-going human 
tide. It is wise, therefore, to look beneath the 
formal and the personal ; to ask what this occasion 
really means or what it ought to mean. 

Of one thing there can be no doubt. This day 
sees the passing of a personal leadership, although 
happily not the waning of that personal influence. 
Not all mortals are destined to be engulfed in the 
nameless millions of mankind. A few outstanding 
men cannot be forgotten. "An institution," said 
Emerson, "is but the lengthening shadow of one 
man." Minnesota, in this sense, will be the length- 
ening shadow of Cyrus Northrop. Such unity as 
the University has found is due almost wholly to 
the fusing power of his winning and guiding per- 
sonality. The University stands a living tribute to 
the quick sympathy, humorous tolerance, harmoniz- 
ing tact, alert intelligence, and moral earnestness 

197 



198 EXTKMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

of its President Emeritus. He had to convince an 
often skeptical outside public ; he had to moderate 
and adjust keen rivalries v^ithin the institution. Col- 
leges and departments sought their own ends with 
only a faint glimpse of the university as a whole. 
As he lays down the burden of twenty-seven years 
he leaves the institution firmly grounded in the 
good will of the people, and unified by the loyalty 
of faculty, alumni, and students. We should sadly 
miss the meaning of this day did we fail to turn 
our grateful thoughts toward C3^rus Northrop and 
to wish him many years of serenity and happiness. 
Unlike Macbeth, he has 

"... that which should accompany old age, 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." 

To-day the University sets its face toward a new 
regime. No man can take the unique place of its 
second president. The burden must rest on many 
men and women, who, as comrades, take up the 
task. The gains of the personal ascendancy that 
has passed must be capitalized. Cooperation, organi- 
zation, team-play, are keynotes for the coming years. 
An institutional period is at hand. Loyalty must 
look to purposes rather than to a person. Leader- 
ship will consist in carrying out policies which 
many have helped to formulate. Regents, faculties, 
alumni, students — all citizens — must see the institu- 
tion more vividly as a noble trust to be administered 
for the common good. This spirit of cooperation 
can be aroused only by a compelling vision of the 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 199 

University seen as an organ of the higher life of 
the Commonwealth. And this ideal must get its 
setting in some inspiring philosophy of the State. 

Mr. H. G. Wells tells us that we, as a nation, 
sufifer from "State blindness," "The typical Ameri- 
can," he says, "has no 'sense of the State.' I do not 
mean that he is not passionately and vigorously 
patriotic. But I mean that he has no coneption 
that his business activities, his private employments, 
are constituents in a large collective process ; that 
they affect other people and the world forever, and 
cannot, as he imagines, begin and end with him." 

Even our friendly critic, the British ambassador, 
takes much the same view. "The State," declares 
Mr. Bryce, "is not to them (Americans), as to Ger- 
mans or Frenchmen, and even to some English 
thinkers, an ideal moral power, charged with the 
duty of forming the characters and guiding the 
lives of its subjects. It is more like a com- 
mercial company, or, perhaps, a huge municipality 
created for the management of certain business in 
which all who reside within its bounds are inter- 
ested. . . ." This individualistic "stock com- 
pany" theory of the Commonwealth is neither en- 
nobling in itself nor does it afiford a sound basis 
for a State-supported university. We may para- 
phrase Mr. Joseph Chamberlin on the British Con- 
stitution, and thank God that our institutions are 
not logical. This philosophy would almost reduce 
the university to a machine for turning out persons 
equipped at public expense for getting a living out 



300 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

of the citizens who had been already taxed to train 
their exploiters. On this basis it is hard to see why 
the State should give privileges to a few at the 
expense of their fellows. Even the "antidote against 
ignorance" philosophy leaves the imagination cold. 
This is only a sublimated form of the policeman 
theory. Obviously we need some other conception 
of the State if we are to escape cynicism about 
both our social system and our public higher edu- 
cation. 

But we cannot admit that Mr. Wells and Mr. 
Bryce have quite made out their case. There are 
signs of change in the feeling of Americans toward 
the State. Especially in the middle and far West 
do we note a keener recognition of collective inter- 
ests and purposes. There is a quickened feeling of 
team-play, a clearer "sense of the state," which is 
thought of not in a merely political way, but is 
looked at as a social life with common aims. The 
people of a State have learned to work together to 
protect natural resources, to foster agriculture, to 
safeguard public health, to regulate industry and 
commerce, to promote the highways, to care for 
the defective and dependent, to promote education. 
They have done these things sometimes through the 
machinery of government, sometimes through un- 
official groups. All this community activity has in- 
evitably changed the picture of the State in the 
minds of its citizens. The Commonwealth emerges 
as something far nobler than a stock company run 
for the profit of its shareholders. It does become 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 201 

"an ideal moral power," a larger life in which men 
and women realize more fully their best selves, and 
to which they give something that will endure for 
all time. The State is coming to stand for a common 
life, which seeks to gain ever higher levels of effi- 
ciency, justice, happiness, and solidarity. 

In a picture like this the State university finds 
both setting and sanction. It becomes an instru- 
ment of the general purpose, a training place of 
social servants, a counsellor of the Commonwealth, 
a source of knowledge and idealism. It is this vision 
which must fascinate and control the men and 
women who are to-day taking up anew the responsi- 
bility for this institution. Arnold Toynbee once 
said : "Enthusiasm can only be aroused by two 
things — first, an ideal which takes the imagination 
by storm; and, second, a definite, intelligible plan 
for carrying this ideal out into practice." Here is 
the whole philosophy of successful effort. Many an 
ideal comes to naught because it lacks the right 
means of expression. Many a well-laid plan misses 
the emotional energy aroused by a vision. Emer- 
son's Oxford don whose philosophy read, "Nothing 
new, nothing true, and no matter," was not of those 
who bring things to pass. We do well to-day to 
catch a glimpse if we can of the university that 
ought to be, with the hope that it may "take our 
imaginations by storm" and urge us to devise "defi- 
nite and intelligible" plans for action 

Let us glance rapidly at the chief things that 
combine in the university ideal which we would fix 



202 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

in our minds to-day. If the phrase "glittering gen- 
eralities" dampens our ardor, we may take courage 
from Emerson's spirited retort, when Choate applied 
these words to the lines of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence : "Glittering generalities !" cried the Sage 
of Concord, "they are blazing ubiquities !" 

The picture of the State as a collective life, which 
seeks common ends by concerted effort, makes the 
State university a means of social efficiency and 
progress. The older individualistic theory no longer 
satisfies even those who put their faith in private 
initiative and responsibility. The university aims 
first of all to serve the Commonwealth through indi- 
viduals, not to ofifer personal privilege at State ex- 
pense. Alma Mater is of a Spartan type, and trains 
her sons and daughters for work and for life. She 
must teach the robust gospel that "It is the one base 
thing to receive and not to give." She must insist 
that "Life is not a cup to be drained, but a measure 
to be filled." For the old aristocratic ideal of 
noblesse oblige she substitutes the sentiment larg- 
esse oblige. Acceptance of public aid may make a 
pauper or an ingrate or a loyal servant of the 
State. If tax-supported higher education is to be 
justified, it must see itself and make the people see 
it as an instrument of the common life, and not an 
agency of privilege. 

The first president of Johns Hopkins University 
was fond of saying that buildings are but the shell 
of the university; its real life lies in its men. He 
was proud of the fact that at the very outset an. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 203 

eminent physicist like Rowland used a kitchen as 
his laboratory. Only great men and women can 
make a university great. Better inspired investiga- 
tors and teachers in barracks than a staff of indus- 
trious mediocrity in marble palaces. Best of all, 
alert, well-trained, high-minded scholars in service- 
able buildings with adequate equipment. If, how- 
ever, a choice must be made, it should never hesi- 
tate between men and materials. The university 
which is true to its ideals will draw and hold an 
able staff by salaries that banish petty anxiety, by 
freedom from drudgery, by opportunities for re- 
search and public service, and by dignifying recogni- 
tion. No institution that thinks of investigators and 
teachers as employees is likely to secure any but 
the drudges of the profession. 

"Enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of verac- 
ity," which Huxley deemed "a greater possession 
than much learning" is the very life of a true uni- 
versity No ingenious machinery of 

scholarship, no mere pedantry which, as a wit has 
said, "never takes a step without leaving a foot- 
note," can take the place of the genuine passion 
for new truth. The ideal university will not deceive 
itself or others by any perfunctory simulation of 
research. It will seek men who have the dauntless 
"fanaticism of veracity." 

"The teaching at the ideal university, declares 
Birrell, "is without equivocation and without com- 
promise. Its notes are zeal, accuracy, fullness, and 
authority." It is hard to keep the functions of teach- 



204 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

ing and investigation in equal honor. Where re- 
search is exalted, instruction is too often lightly 
esteemed. The "mere teacher," as the patronizing 
phrase runs, suffers in rank and salary and social 
status. In the university of our dreams the noble 
callingof imparting truth, stimulating reflection, and 
kindling enthusiasm will be held in high repute. But 
the two types will not be too sharply contrasted, 
for he who teaches "with zeal, accuracy, fullness, 
and authority" must refresh himself constantly at 
the sources of knowledge, while no man who pushes 
forward the frontiers of science can fail to impart 
with zest to at least a small group of followers the 
new truth that he has discovered. The two types 
must hold each other in respect and honor, and 
both must be held up for admiration by their col- 
leagues. 

In an ideal university students should be treated 
not as subjects, but as citizens of the republic of 
letters and science. Students have not always been 
in pupilage. Frederick Barbarossa conferred such 
powers upon the students of Bologna that they not 
only lorded it over the townfolk, but we are told 
"reduced the latter (professors) to a position of 
humble deference to the very body they were called 
upon to instruct." To admit students to academic 
citizenship, however, is not to surrender to them 
control of the university. It is simply to emphasize 
their share in the community life; to fix upon them 
responsibility and to afford that training in cor- 
porate self-control — the selection of leaders, the 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 205 

creation of standards, the conformity to these — 
which is the very essence of democracy. The uni- 
versity must hark back to the mediaeval ideal of a 
"Universitas magistrorum et studentium" — a corpo- 
ration of teachers and scholars. The alumni, too, 
must feel themselves a part of this corporation. 
They do not, as at the English universities, legally 
control, but actually they have great power and 
responsibility. They will not be mere praisers of 
the past, and resent change because the memories 
of their undergraduate days have been embalmed 
in sentiment. On the contrary, they will often take 
the initiative in new movements. They will report 
impressions gathered as they mingle with the 
people of the State; they will feel not only free, 
but in duty bound to make suggestions; they will 
make it a point to know what the university is aim- 
ing at, and will help to interpret the institution to 
the State. The alumni will frequent the only lobbies 
that the university can afford to enter, the daily 
converse of citizens and the agencies of publicity. 
And all this the alumni can do effectively only 
through an organization which will cooperate heart- 
ily with the other members of the university com- 
munity. 

If a people is not to perish mentally and spirit- 
ually, it must be steadily refreshed by streams of 
thought and idealism. Of these, the university 
strives to be a perennial source. Unless graduation 
is a mockery, hundreds of men and women go forth 
each year to diffuse throughout the Commonwealth 



206 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

the ideas and attitude toward life which they gained 
from their college training. The value of all this 
must be as real as it is intangible. Mathew Arnold 
has described the eflfect of such diffusion of ideas in 
speaking of *'this knowledge turning a stream of 
fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and 
habits, which we now follow staunchly, but me- 
chanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue 
in following them staunchly, which makes up for 
the mischief of following them mechanically." If 
a State is to be flexible and escape the bonds of 
habit and custom, it must be constantly revivified. 
In this service the university must play a leading 
part 

To find exceptional men and women, to train 
them for service, to fit them for leadership, to fill 
them with zeal for truth and justice, is the one 
great aim of the university. "The mind which 
keeps the mass in motion," said Godkin, "would 
most probably, if we could lay bare the secret of 
national vigor, be found in the possession of a very 
small proportion of the people, though not in any 
class in particular, neither among the rich nor the 
poor, the learned nor the simple, capitalists nor 
laborers- " 

From the university towers the searchlights must 
be ever sweeping countryside, village, town, and 
city for the "minds which keep the mass in motion." 

Standards of truth, skill, taste, efficiency are the 
capitalized experience of society, essential to stabil- 
ity and progress. Of these standards, the university 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 207 

is one of the guardians. To these, come what may, 
it must be true. No sympathy for individuals, no 
pressure of influence, no fear of retaliation, no desire 
for numbers must weaken fidelity to standards. 
Freedom of research, freedom of teaching, high 
ideals of productive scholarship and of professional 
integrity, conscientious and fearless appraisal of 
students' work are of vital concern to the university 
and to the State it serves. To help to refine and 
raise these standards, to adjust them more nicely 
to social needs, to fix these values in public opinion, 
is a duty of the ideal universit3^ 

In the striking phrase of President Van Rise, the 
university must aim at being the "expert advisor 
of the State." How stirring the thought of a well 
organized and efficiently manned center of knowl- 
edge, skill, and wisdom, holding itself at the dis- 
posal of every constructive interest and activity 
of the community, and ready to concentrate upon 
their problems the sifted experience of all the world. 
In this responsiveness the true university expresses 
its purpose and spirit. It is a bureau of information, 
the stored memory of civilization, an alert inves- 
tigator of new facts ; it is a friendly and at the same 
time a disinterested counsellor. It is pathetic to 
see men, isolated frotn the wisdom of the centuries 
and of their own times, hopefully assailing the ever 
recurring problems of life. The waste of effort, the 
futility of duplicating errors, cry out for aid. The 
opportunities for service multiply with each year. 
We are coming to realize that good farming is no 



208 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

longer a robbing, but a recompensing of the soil ; 
that it costs as much to plant bad seed as good ; 
that sometimes cows are pensioners instead of pro- 
ducers; that bad highways are the heaviest road 
tax; that cheap schools are the most expensive; that 
public health is national capital ; that juvenile delin- 
quency comes less from depravity than from depri- 
vation ; that industrial accidents are not lawyers* 
perquisites, but costs of production; that all idle- 
ness is not due to indolence ; that social legislation 
is not an amiable avocation, but an exacting profes- 
sion ; that municipal government should not be so 
skilfully designed to prevent bad men from doing 
harm, that it keeps honest and efficient men from 
doing good ; that the United States must trust less 
to a "manifest destiny" and more to a constructive 
purpose. In these changes of theory and method 
there is need -of accurate knowledge, carefully inter- 
preted experiment, and authoritative advice. If the 
university is true to its mission, it will put all 
of its resources and its trained experts at the ser- 
vice of the community. Amid the conflicts and 
rivalries of many interests, parties, sects, sections, 
professions, social groups, the university must never 
waver from the position of an unimpassioned, un- 
prejudiced seeker for the truth, all of it, and that 
alone. This responsibility is not to be assumed 
lightly. Mistakes are costly in public confidence. 
Eternal vigilance is the price of prestige. The dis- 
comfiture of the expert gives joy to the average 
citizen. The ideal university must, therefore, be 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 209 

true to the most rigorous laws of scientific method 
if the institution is to gain and hold its place as 

the "expert advisor of the State." 

We have caught glimpses of the university ideal. 
May this, as the years pass, grow ever clearer, 
nobler, more inspiring. May it take our "imagina- 
tions by storm," not as an evanescent emotion, but 
as a persistent vision. We remember Toynbee's 
words, "a definite intelligible plan for carrying that 
ideal out into practice." It is to the many details 
of this plan that as colleagues we are to address our- 
selves. May we take up this great task with a sol- 
emn sense of what it means. We must not deceive 
ourselves. We advance to no easy triumphs. We 
must cherish no millennial dreams. We must have 
faith that good-will, guided by wisdom, will in the 
end bring our vision to pass. Let us, then, with 
sober judgment and steady courage, pledge anew 
our loyalty to the ideals of the university, to the 
people of the State, and to that republic of science, 
letters, and the arts which knows no national boun- 
daries. May each of us take to heart the counsel of 
Goethe : 

"What each day needs, that shalt thou ask; 
Each day will set its proper task. 
Give others' work just share of praise; 
Not of thine own the merits raise. 
Beware no fellow man thou hate; 
And so in God's hands leave thy fate." 



THE DELAYS AND DEFECTS IN THE 

ENFORCEMENT OF LAW IN 

THIS COUNTRY 

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT 

Parts of an address delivered by William H. Taf :: before the 
Civic Forum, in New York City, April 28, 1908. 

If one were to be asked in what respect we had 
fallen farthest short of ideal conditions in our whole 
government, I think he would be justified in answer- 
ing, in spite of the failure that we have made gen- 
erally in municipal government, that the greatest 
reform which could be effected would be expedition 
and thoroughness in the enforcement of public and 
private rights in our courts. I do not mean to say 
that the judges of the courts are lacking either in 
honesty, industry, or knowledge of the law, but I 
do mean to say that the machinery of which they 
are a part is so cumbersome and slow and expensive 
for the litigants — public and private — that the whole 
judicial branch of the government fails in a marked 
way to accomplish certain of the purposes for which 
it was created. 

In the courts of first instance and in the inter- 
mediate appellate courts of the United States there 
is much more delay than is necessary. In the first 
place, the codes of procedure are much too elabo- 



212 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

rate. It is possible to have a code of procedure 
simple and effective. This is shown by the present 
procedure in the English courts framed by rules of 
court. The code of the State of New York is stag- 
gering in the number of its sections. A similar 
defect exists in some civil law countries. The elabo- 
rate Spanish code of procedure that we found in the 
Philippines when we first went there could be used 
by a dilatory defendant to keep the plaintiff stamp- 
ing in the vestibule of justice until time had made 
justice impossible. Every additional technicality, 
every additional rule of procedure adds to the ex- 
pense of litigation. It is inevitable that with an 
elaborate code, the expense of a suit involving a 
small sum is in proportion far greater than that 
involving a large sum. Hence, it results that the 
cost of justice to the poor is always greater than 
it is to the rich, assuming that the poor are more 
often interested in small cases and the rich in large 
ones — a fairly reasonable assumption. In perhaps 
less than half the cases a jury trial is possible, and 
necessary if demanded. This adds to the elaborate 
machiner)^ necessary for the adjustment and de- 
cision of the rights of the litigants. It greatly in- 
creases the time taken in the disposition of the case, 
and also the expense attendant on the trial. In the 
Federal courts, upon demand, a jury trial must be 
had in all cases at common law involving more 
than twenty dollars. 

One reason for unreasonable delay in the lower 
courts is the disposition of judges to wait an undue 



THE LAW'S DELAYS 213 

length of time in the writing of their opinions or 
judgments. I speak with confidence on this point, 
for I have sinned myself. In English courts the 
ordinary practice is for the judge to deliver his 
opinion immediately upon the close of the argument, 
and this is the practice which ought to be enforced 
so far as possible in our courts of first instance. It 
is a great deal more important that the court of first 
instance should decide promptly than that it should 
decide right. Such practice of deciding cases at the 
close of the hearing makes the judge very much 
more attentive to the argument during its presenta- 
tion and much more likely on the whole to decide 
right when the evidence and the arguments are 
fresh in his mind. In the Philippines the system has 
been adopted of refusing a judge his regular monthly 
stipend unless he can file a certificate, with the 
receipt for the money, in which he certifies on honor 
that he has disposed of all the business submitted 
to him within the previous sixty days. This has 
had a marvellously good effect in keeping the 
dockets of the court clear. 

One of the great difficulties with the profession 
of the law — whether the members are judges or ad- 
vocates — is the disposition to treat the litigants as 
made for the courts and the lawyers, and not the 
courts and lawyers as made for the litigants. And 
as it is lawyers who in judicial committees of the 
legislatures draft the codes of procedure, there is 
too frequently not present in as strong impelling 
force as it ought to be the motive for simplifying 



214 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

the procedure and making the final disposition of 
cases as short as possible. In the end, this would 
be greatly in the interest of the lawyers, because 
they would have more business. The present condi- 
tions of delay in the courts and inability to obtain 
final decisions within a reasonably short time, lead 
those who are able to arbitrate their cases out of 
court and lead many a part to a controversy to yield 
to unjust claims rather than to expose himself to the 
nervous strain and expensive burden of a long- 
drawn-out contest in court. 

We have, as is well understood, certam constitu- 
tional restrictions as to the procedure in criminal 
cases which offer protection to the accused and 
present difficulties in the proof of his guilt to the 
government. But these obtain as well in the English 
courts as in our own, and, therefore, their existence 
does not offer a reason for the delays which we have 
here and which are absent in the English adminis- 
tration of justice. A murder case, which in this 
country is permitted to drag itself out for three 
weeks or a month, in England is disposed of in a day, 
two days, or, at the most, three days — certainly in 
less than one-fifth the time. This is because the 
judges insist upon expedition by the counsel, cut 
short useless cross-examination, and confine the evi- 
dence to the nub of the case. It is due to the greater 
power which the English judge is given, in accord- 
ance with the common law rule, as to the respective 
functions of the court and jury. With such speed, 
it would be possible for the prosecuting attorneys 



THE LAW'S DELAYS 315 

to clear their dockets, whereas now they are utterly 
unable to do so. A man who is indicted and has 
means with which to secure bail is released on 
bond, unless he is confined for murder in the first 
degree. The pressure upon the prosecuting officers 
is for the trial of those who are in jail and unable 
to give bail, and the result usually is that there is 
but little time for the trial of those who are re- 
leased on bail; so continuances are granted from 
time to time in the bailed cases, the evidence fades 
and disappears, newer and more sensational cases 
come on, and ultimately nollies are entered, and 
the indicted man escapes. This is the explanation 
why so many crimes are not punished. Much of the 
difficulty and failure of justice would be avoided if 
greater expedition were used in the cases v/hich are 
tried. 

Another cause of delay is the difficulty of secur- 
ing jurors properly sensible of the duty which they 
are summoned to perform. In the extreme tender- 
ness the State legislatures exhibit toward persons 
accused as criminals, and especially as murderers, 
they allow peremptory challenges to the defendant 
in excess of those allowed to the State. In my own 
State of Ohio for a long time the law was that the 
State was allowed two peremptory challenges and 
the defendant twenty-three in capital cases. This 
very great discrepancy between the two sides of 
the case allowed the defendant's counsel to eliminate 
from all panels every man of force and character 
and standing in the community, and to assemble a 



216 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

collection in the jury box of nondescripts of no 
character, weak., and amenable to every breeze of 
emotion, however maudlin or errelevant to the issue. 

One very salutary provision which ought to be 
introduced into the statutes of every State and the 
statutes of the United States in regard to appeals 
in criminal cases, and indeed in regard to appeals in 
civil cases, would be that no judgment of a trial 
court should be reversed except for an error which 
the court, after reading the entire record, can 
affirmatively say would have led to a different ver- 
dict and judgment. This would do no injustice and 
would end reversals for technicalities. 

And, now, what has been the result of the lax 
administration of criminal law in this country? 
Criminal statistics are exceedingly difficult to 
obtain. The number of homicides one can note 
from the daily newspapers, the number of lynchings, 
and the number of executions, but the number or 
indictments, trials, convictions, acquittals, or mis- 
trials it is hard to find. Since 1885 in the United 
States there have been 131,951 murders and homi- 
cides, and there have been 2,286 executions. In 18S5 
the number of murders was 1,808. In 1904 it bad 
increased to 8,482. The number of executions in 
1885 was 108. In 1904 it was 116. This startling 
increase in the number of murders and homicides 
as compared with the number of executions tells 
the story. As murder is on the increase, so are all 
offences of the felony class, and there can be no 
doubt that they will continue to increase unless the 



THE LAW'S DELAYS 217 

criminal laws are enforced with more certainty, 
more uniformity, more severity than they now are. 
I freely admit that the strongest force in a com- 
munity like this is the force of public opinion, and 
that frequently the existence of evils in the com- 
munity is due to the fact that the force of public 
opinion is not sufficiently directed to the evil in 
hand. The enormous discrepancy between the 
crimes which are committed and the crimes which 
are actually brought to trial is sufficient to show 
that the force of public opinion is not acute enough 
and is not directed against the prosecuting officers 
and the judicial officers with sufficient vigor to 
bring every man guilty of an offence to trial. Of 
recent years we have been engaged in the trial of 
Wealthy men and corporations charged with violat- 
ing the anti-trust laws and the anti-rebate laws, or 
laws against railway discrimination. In the trials 
which have ensued there has been brought home to 
the public the possibility of contest offered to 
wealthy defendants who employ acute counsel to 
take advantage of all the technicalities and delays 
which the laws at present in force offer. It is quite 
possible that the escape of wealthy malefactors 
under our present criminal system from just punish- 
ment will bring home to the people at large the con- 
viction which ought to obtain, that in the tender- 
ness toward the individual charged with crime mani- 
fested by legislatures and lawmakers during the 
last fifty years in this country, great injustice has 
been done to the interests of the public and that is 
a time for the calling of a halt. 



THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE, THE 
PAROLE, AND THE NEW CRIMI- 
NOLOGY 

FREDERICK HOWARD WINES 

Parts of an address by Frederick Howard Wines, before 
the Chamber of Commerce, Springfield, 111., March 2, 1910. 

Criminology is the science and art of dealing with 
crime and criminals. The new criminology is the 
natural and inevitable reaction against the old, 
against the penal codes and penal establishments, 
which it is its aim to replace by others more in 
harmony with modern intelligence and civilization. 

The indeterminate sentence and the parole, or 
conditional liberation, though separable in thought 
and in law, are vitally related to each other as 
component parts of an advanced prison system ; the 
attempt to sever them from each other would re- 
semble the rejected proposal to cut the bond that 
united the Siamese twins lest it should prove fatal 
to one or both. The indeterminate sentence is the 
central feature of the new criminology. 

As an advocate of the new criminology, I shall 
endeavor to demonstrate that the abandonment in 
Illinois of the indeterminate sentence, which would 
necessarily follow a successful attack upon the 
parole law, would be a retrograde step in the on- 
ward march of science and of religion. 

219 



220 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

It is now very nearly half a century since my 
father, the acknowledged leader of prison reform 
throughout the world, the founder of the national 
prison association and of the international peniten- 
tiary congress, awakened my interest in the prison 
question. When I consider the state of American 
prisons then and the advance that has been made 
since, I am moved to exclaim, with Hamlet, "Look 
here, upon this picture, and on this;" or, in the 
words of the first telegram sent over the line be- 
tween Baltimore and Washington, "What hath God 
wrought." 

There were at that time three great wrongs that 
loudly called for redress; political control of prisons, 
contract labor in prisons, and the undue frequency 
and severity of disciplinary punishments. The 
profits of the S3^stem went to the contractor and the 
political leader; the convict was its helpless victim. 

Convict labor is unwilling labor. In order to 
render it profitable, coercion in some form is indis- 
pensable. The system seemed to justify and de- 
mand the application of brute force, and it was 
sometimes applied in forms which recall to mind 
the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition 

At last it dawned upon the consciousness, even 
of the men by whom the system was administered, 
that human conduct is regulated by two opposite 
motives, of which one — namely, fear, is brutalizing 
and degrading, but the influence of hope is on the 
contrary inspiring and uplifting. It was decided to 
try the effect of rewards instead of punishments 



INDETERMINATE SENTENCE 221 

as an inducement to industry and obedience. Two 
forms of reward suggested themselves. The first 
of these was the grant to the prisoner himself of a 
share in his earnings; the second, the promise of 
some abridgment of his term of incarceration. The 
latter took originally the form of commutation of 
sentence, on a fixed scale, regulated by law. The 
immediate influence of this innovation was to render 
the administration of discipline far more easy, and 
its former harshness was greatly ameliorated. Com- 
mutation of sentence as a legal right had a tendency 
to awaken some degree of self-respect in the pris- 
oner's mind, whereas commutation, as a favor, and 
still more a pardon given as an act of arbitrary 
grace, exerts a demoralizing influence, which ex- 
tends to the entire prison population. But commu- 
tation implies absolute discharge; and in this par- 
ticular it differs from conditional release or the 
parole, under which the convict is still in legal cus- 
tody, though at large, and is liable at any time to be 
re-arrested and imprisoned in case he violates the 
conditons attached to his parole. 

These commutation acts, however, and the experi- 
ence had of their beneficial tendency, did much to 
prepare the way for the ultimate acceptance of the 
principle of the indeterminate sentence. 

There is not, and in the nature of things there 
cannot be, any aid to a truly reformatory discipline 
like that afforded by the indetermniate sentence. 
Every prison official can testify to the dissatisfac- 



222 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

tion and unrest caused by the palpable inequality 
of sentences ; an inequality which neither the legis- 
lature nor the courts can avoid or correct. The only 
equal sentence is the indeterminate sentence, with 
an identical maximum for all who violate a given 
section of the code, coupled with identical condi- 
tions by which to reduce it to the minimum pre- 
scribed by law. Its imposition removes all ground 
for complaint on this score. It also puts an end 
to the fallacious hope of an unconditional pardon. 
The prisoner is given to understand that the date 
of his release on parole depends entirely upon him- 
self. The authorities desire his release and will 
help him to earn it; they are not his enemies, but 
his friends. This disarms him of his hostility to 
them. 

The hope of an early release sustains him under 
the depressing influence of prison life and stimulates 
him to exert himself to avoid losing whatever he 
has gained by diligence and good conduct. He is 
aided to form habits of industry and obedience, 
which tend to become fixed. He is trained and 
transformed. 

Under the indeterminate sentence, the prison it- 
self undergoes a gradual process of transformation. 
The moment that reformation, rather than punish- 
ment, becomes the watchword of the administra- 
tion, a new spirit takes possession of it. The gov- 
ernor chooses better and abler men to govern it — 
men imbued with reformatory ideas and qualified 



INDETERMINATE SENTENCE 223 

to exert a reformatory influence ; men of higher edu- 
cation, purer moral character, broader culture, 
loftier aims in life, greater devotion to their work. 

Nor must we fail to take account of the effect of 
parole on the discharged prisoner. Under the old 
system, the gate of the prison shutting him out of 
the prison exerted a depressing effect upon his mind 
comparable only to that of the same gate, months 
or years before, shutting him in. Now he leaves 
the prison with a new hope. He goes to a home 
prepared to receive and welcome him. He has 
money in his pocket and the assurance of an oppor- 
tunity to earn an honest living. During the time 
of his probation he is watched, encouraged, warned, 
steadied by the consciousness that failure on his 
part to make good will render him liable to re- 
arrest and re-imprisonment. His chances in life 
are a hundredfold better than under a definite sen- 
tence and an absolute discharge. 

As a matter of statistical fact, the average term 
of detention of bad and dangerous men is longer 
under the indeterminate than under the definite sen- 
tence, so that society is better protected under the 
new system than it was under the old; and those 
whose conduct shows a less degree of moral turpi- 
tude are sooner restored to citizenship and the 
ranks of productive, self-supporting wage-earners. 
A judge who has been for twenty-four years upon 
the bench of the Circuit Court of Illinois declares 
that, since the passage of the indeterminate sentence 
act of 1897, he has had occasion to sentence but four 



224 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

men a second time for any crime, whereas in his 
earlier experience he resentenced not less than one 
hundred, and some of them three or four times. In 
four years' time in the office of State's attorney of 
Sangamon county, Mr. Hatch, a member of this 
club, whom j^ou all know and highly esteem, knows 
of the return of but two to the penitentiary of this 
State for violation of the conditions of their parole. 
No, gentlemen, it is only by reason of ignorance, 
prejudice, or selfish interest, that this law is op- 
posed, and attempts made to repeal it, or so to 
amend it as to destroy its efficiency for good. Should 
any such effort prove successful, but it will not, the 
hand upon the dial-plate of the clock which marks 
the advance in civilization would move backward. 
We might have cause to apprehend the return of 
the night of the dark ages, a return to the lash, the 
dungeon, the ball and chain, the rack, the thumb- 
screw, and all the hideous paraphernalia of an age 
in which tyrants sought by violence to stifle the 
yearnings of the human race for freedom and equal 
rights. 



THE HONOR SYSTEM 



JESSE H. HOLMES 



A chapel speech by Jesse H. Holmes, Ph. D., Professor of 
Philosophy in Swarthmore College. 

There is a saying that "ability is not the measure 
of responsibility, but responsibility is the measure 
of ability." The power to assume responsibility is 
of more importance than intellectual acuteness. Un- 
doubtedly many of the men who surrounded Wash- 
ington were more brilliant in intellectual power 
than Washington himself. It was Washington's 
capacity to lead that made him a great man as com- 
pared with his contemporaries. This does not mean 
merely that he assumed responsibility for his own 
conduct. On the contrar}^, he assumed responsi- 
bility for the conduct of many others. 

In the life of the college, as well as in the life 
of the nation, the value of the student and the 
character of the student is indicated by his willing- 
ness to assume responsibility not only for his own 
conduct, but also for that of the college at large. I 
am saying this in connection with the discussion 
of the honor system. As a matter of fact, there are 
only two systems possible in dealing with examina- 
tions. These are the "honor" system and the "dis- 
honor" system. A student does not cheat to himself 

225 



226 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

alone. A cheating student dishonors his whole 
class and lowers the tone of the whole college. He 
cheapens the degree of every student who gradu- 
ates from the college. In my judgment, it is the 
duty of the students of this college to see to it that 
no dishonest paper ever goes into the hands of an 
instructor. This does not mean that the student 
must tell the instructor of the dishonest work, but 
it does mean that he is to make it impossible for 
the dishonest student to receive credit for stolen 
work, or to remain permanently in the college. 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 

WOODROW WILSOX 

A speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson at the Jackson Day 
Dinner of the Democratic party in Washington, January 
8, 1 91 2. 

Mr. Toastmaster and Fellow Democrats i We are 
met to celebrate an achievement. It is an interest- 
ing circumstance that principles have no anniver- 
saries. Only the men who employ principles are 
celebrated upon occasions like this and only the 
events to which their concerted action gave rise 
excite our enthusiasm. You know that the prin- 
ciples of the Democratic party are professed by 
practically the whole population of the United 
States. The test of a Democrat is whether he lives 
up to those principles or not. I have no doubt there 
are some people in the United States who covertly 
question the doctrines of Democracy, but nobody 
challenges them openly. It goes without saying, 
therefore, that we have not come together merely 
to state the abstract principles of our party. We 
have come together to take counsel as to how it is 
possible, by courageous and concerted action, to 
translate them into policy and law. The Democratic 
party has had a long period of disappointment and 

227 



228 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

defeat, and I think that we can point out the reason. 
We do not live in simple times. We live in very 
conflicting times indeed. No man can be certain 
that he can say how to weave the threads of Demo- 
cratic principle throughout all the complicated gar- 
ment of our civilization, and the reason that the 
Democratic party has had this period of successive 
disturbance is that it has been divided into groups 
just as it was to the method of fulfilling the 
principles. 

We have differed as to measures ; it has taken us 
sixteen years and more to come to any comprehen- 
sion of our community of thought in regard to what 
we ought to do. What I want to say is that one 
of the most striking things in recent years is that 
with all the rise and fall of particular ideas, with all 
the ebb and flow of particular proposals, there has 
been one interesting fixed point in the history of the 
Democratic party, and that fixed point has been the 
character and the devotion and the preachings of 
William Jennings Bryan. 

I, for my part, never want to forget this: That 
while we have differed with Mr. Bryan upon this 
occasion and upon that in regard to the specific 
things to be done, he has gone serenely on pointing 
out to a more and more convinced people what it 
was that was the matter. He has had the steadfast 
vision all along of what it was that was the matter, 
and he has, not any more than Andrew Jackson did, 
not based his career upon calculation, but has based 
it upon principle. 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 229 

Now, what has been the matter? The matter has 
been that the government of this country was pri- 
vately controlled and that the business of this 
country was privately controlled; that we did not 
have genuine representative government and that 
the people of this country did not have the control 
of their own affairs. 

What do we stand for here to-night and what 
shall we stand for as long as we live? We stand 
for setting the government of this country free and 
the business of this country free. The facts have 
been disputed by a good many sections of the Demo- 
cratic party for the last half generation, but they 
were not clearly recognized. 

I make the assertion that the government was 
privately controlled. I mean, to put it specifically, 
that the government of this country was managed 
by politicians, who gained the contributions which 
they used by solicitation from particular groups of 
business interests on the understanding, explicit or 
implied, that the first care of the government was 
to be for those particular interests. I am not ques- 
tioning either the integrity or patriotism of the men 
concerned. I have no right to. In most instances 
they were of that old belief, cropping up again and 
again in America, that the people of this country 
are not capable of perceiving their own interest and 
of .managing their own affairs ; that they have not 
the contact with large affairs; that they have not 
the variety of experience which qualifies them to 
take charge of their own affairs. It is the old Hamil- 



230 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

tonian doctrine that those who have the biggest 
asset in the government should be the trustees for 
the rest of us; that the men who conduct the big- 
gest business transactions are the only men who 
should stand upon an elevation sufficient to see the 
whole range of our afifairs, and that if we will but 
follow their leadership we may share in their pros- 
perity. That is the Republican doctrine, and I am 
perfectly willing, as a tribute to their honesty, 
though not to their intelligence, to admit that they 
really believe it ; that they really believe it is unsafe 
to trust such delicate matters as the complicated 
business of this country to the general judgment 
o£ the country. They believe only a very small 
coterie of gentlemen are to be trusted with the 
conduct of large affairs. There was a long period 
in New Jersey, for example, in which no commis- 
sioner of insurance was ever chosen without first 
consulting or getting the consent of the head of the 
largest insurance company in the State, and I am 
willing to admit, at any rate, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that it was supposed he, better than anyone 
else, knew who was qualified for the job. He did 
know who was qualified for the job and he had the 
proper point of view in demonstrating that it was 
mainly for the benefit of the big interests. 

Now, the other thing that has been privately con- 
trolled in this country is the business of the country. 
I do not mean that each man's particular business 
ought not to be privately controlled, but I mean that 



JACKvSON DAY DINNER 231 

each man's particular business ought not to be pri- 
vately controlled, but I mean that the great business 
transactions of this country are privately controlled 
by gentlemen whom I can name and whom I will 
name, if it is desired ; men of great dignity of char- 
acter; men, as I believe, of great purity of purpose, 
but men who have concentrated, in their own hands, 
transactions which they are not willing to have the 
rest of the country interfere with. 

Now, the real difficulty in the United States, it 
seems to me, is not the existence of great individual 
combinations — that is dangerous enough in all 
countries — but the real danger is the combination of 
the combinations, the real danger is that the same 
groups of men control chains of banks, systems of 
railways, whole manufacturing enterprises, great 
mining projects, great enterprises for the developing 
of the natural water power of this country, and 
that threaded together in the personnel of a series 
of boards of directors is a community of interest 
more formidable than any conceivable combintion 
in the United States. 

It has been said that you cannot "unscramble 
eggs," and I am perfectly willing to admit it, but 
I can see in all cases before they are scrambled that 
they are not put in the same basket and entrusted 
to the same groups of persons. 

What we have got to do — and it is a collossal 
task — a task not to be undertaken with a light head 
or without judgment — but what we have got to do 
is to disentangle this collossal community of in- 



232 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

terest. No matter how we may purpose dealing 
with a single combination in restraint of trade, you 
will agree with me in this : that I think no com- 
bination is big enough for the United States to be 
afraid of; and when all the combinations are com- 
bined, and this combination is not disclosed by any 
process of incorporation or law, but is merely the 
identity of personnel, then there is something for 
the law to pull apart, and gently, but firmly and 
persistently, dissect. 

You know that the chemist distinguishes between 
a chemical combination and an amalgam. A chemi- 
cal combination has done something which I can- 
not scientifically describe, but its molecules have 
become intimate with one another and practically 
united, whereas an amalgam has a mere physical 
union created by pressure from without. Now, you 
can destroy that mere physical contact without hurt- 
ing the individual elements, and you can break up 
this community of interest without hurting any one 
of the single interests combined ; not that I am par- 
ticularly delicate of some of the interests com- 
bined — I am not under bonds to be unusually polite, 
but I am interested in the business of this country, 
and believe its integrity depends upon this dissec- 
tion. I do not believe any one group of men has 
vision enough or genius enough to determine what 
the development of opportunity and the accomplish- 
ments by achievement shall be in this country. You 
can't establish competition by law, but you can take 
away the obstacles by law that stand in the way of 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 233 

competition, and while we may despair of setting 
up competition among individual persons, there is 
good ground for setting up competiton between 
these great combinations, and after we have got 
them competing with one another they will come 
to their senses in so many respects that we can 
afterwards hold conference with them without los- 
ing our self-respect. 

Now, that's the job. That's the thing that exists, 
and the thing that has to be changed, not in any 
spirit of revolution and not with the thought — for 
it would be a deeply unjust thought — that the busi- 
ness men of this coimtry have put up any job on the 
government of this country. Take even that colos- 
sal job known as the Paine-Aldrich tariff. The busi- 
ness men of this country did not put up that job ! 
Some of the business men of this country did, but 
by no means all of them. Think what that means ! 
Do you mean to say that the commercial men of this 
country are interested in maintaining the integrity 
of that bill? Some and only some of the manu- 
facturers of this country have put up that job on us, 
and many of them have been the unwilling benefi- 
ciaries of a system which they knew did not minister 
to the prosperity of their undertakings. 

I am not going to make a tariff speech. It is so 
easy to knock holes in the present tariff there is no 
sport in it. I am a humane man. I wouldn't jump 
on a thing like that, but I do want to point out to 
you that the ownership of government — it is a harsh 
word to use, but I am not using it harshly, I am 



234 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

using it for shorthand — the ownership of the gov- 
ernment of the United States, by special groups of 
interests, centers in the tariff, and that's where the 
difference comes in. I have heard men say that 
politicians interfered too much with business. I 
want to say that business men interfere too much 
with politics. Do the statesmen of this country go 
to the Ways and Means Committee and the Finance 
Committee and beg for these favors? You know 
that they do not. Some Congressmen go to these 
committees and plead that some gentlemen back in 
their constituencies are pressing them hard on bills, 
and as public men, plead for individual interests, and 
their entrance into politics has been so by those 
who intended to control the schedules of the tariff. 
I once heard a very distinguished member of 
Congress give this illustration : He was talking 
about a great campaign fund that had been col- 
lected. It was the paltry sum of $400,000. It was a 
great sum for that somewhat primitive day, and it 
was pointed out at the time — at any rate specified — 
that most of this money had been contributed by 
manufacturers, who were the chief beneficiaries of 
the tariff, and those gentlemen pointed out that they 
certainly would want to get their money back. I 
may not be saying the thing properly, but it is 
simply this : 

Down where I live we get most of our water from 
pumps, and a pump, as you know, may go dry over 
night, and a prudent housekeeper will pump up a 
bucket of water at night before she goes to bed and 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 235 

leave it standing. Then in the morning, if the 
plunger won't suck, she pours in that water and 
that expands the plunger and it begins sending the 
pump water out, and the first water that comes out 
is the same water she poured in. By that I mean, 
gentlemen, that this $400,000 was ordered poured in 
to make the old pump suck, and you know that that 
homely illustration is fair. That's what is done and 
that's the way the control of government comes in. 
Well, what are wo going to do? I have a prac- 
tical mind and am not interested particularly in the 
too-long-winded discussion of the principles upon 
which we are going to act. Neither am I wise 
enough to propose a comprehensive program. T 
think the rule of Donnybrook Fair is good enough 
for me : "Hit the heads you see." Make sure before 
that your shillalas are made of good Irish hickory. 
By that I mean this : Lop off the special favors when- 
ever you are certain you have identified them; lop 
them off. That's a pretty good rule. You don't 
need to be all-wise to do that. Paint some of those 
favors so conspicuously that all can see them. If 
you don't know which they are, ask the first man 
you meet on the street and he will tell you. He will 
give you a list that will keep you busy all winter. 
And I might add this, if you please: not to go at 
them haphazard, but to go steadily through the 
things that have become obvious excrescences and 
cut them off. That's a very definite program, and 
then I might add: go into an absolutely thorough 



236 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

investigation of the way it may best be conducted, 
find out just where, in dissecting, the scalpel can be 
introduced, and divorce these artificial unions, be- 
cause I know that you will not be cutting living 
tissue. 

I hear a great deal of talk about conservatism and 
radicalism. Now, what makes a man shiver when he 
hears a statement of the facts concerning it? He 
feels it is cold-blooded and indiscreet to state the 
facts, and yet he really is inclined, I must say, to 
think there is something in it. He says to himself : 
This man must be a radical, because if he sees the 
thing that way, what, in God's name, is he going 
to do, because, if he is going to go to work to 
thoroughly change those facts there is no telling 
where he will stop. Now, it is just there that he 
ought to stop being radical. If the prudent surgeon 
wants to save the patient he has got absolutely to 
know the naked anatomy of the man. He has got 
to know what is under his skin and in his intestines ; 
he has got to be absolutely indecent in his scrutiny. 
And then he has got to say to himself: "I know 
where the seat of life is ; I know where my knife 
should penetrate; I dare not go too far for fear it 
should touch the fountain of vitality. In order to 
save this beautiful thing I must cut deep, but I must 
cut carefully; I must cut out the things that are 
decayed and rotten, the things that manifest disease, 
and I m.ust leave every honest, wholesome tissue 
absolutely untouched." A capital operation may 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 237 

be radical, but it is also conservative. There can- 
not be life without the cutting out of the dead and 
decayed tissue. 

And as to business, after a few committees like 
the Stanley Committee have gone on a little longer 
we will know a good many particulars, and we will 
be versed in this high finance business ourselves. 
These things are coming out with astonishing 
candor. We now know how to regulate prices. We 
know how to run combinations by circulars that 
convey intimations and instructions. We see the 
little artificial threads that bind these things to- 
gether, threads which do not themselves contain the 
life, but which themselves do control the vessels 
in which the life blood runs. And so stage by stage 
we shall learn what the practical business of a 
Democrat is. It is to go to the root of the matter, 
seek out the processes of cure and restoration and 
rehabilitation. What a travesty it is upon the name 
of Democracy to see any Democrat who wishes to 
destroy the very thing that his principles should make 
him in love with — namely, the life of the people them- 
selves. A very thoughtful preacher pointed out the 
other day that one of the first quotations in our 
Lord's Prayer is "Give us this day our daily bread," 
which would seem, perhaps, to indicate that our 
Lord knew what every statesman must know, that 
the spiritual life of the nation cannot exist unless it 
has physical life ; that you cannot be an altruist and 
patriot on an empty stomach. Nothing shows the 
utter incapacity of a man to be a Democrat so much 



238 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

as his incapacity to understand what we are after. 
He does not know that the very seeds of life are in 
the principles and confidence and lives and virtues 
of the people of this country, and so when we strike 
at the trusts, or rather, I won't say strike at the 
trusts, because we are not slashing about us — when 
we move against the trusts, when we undertake the 
strategy which is going to he necessary to over- 
come and destroy monopoly, we are rescuing the 
business of this country, we are not injuring it, and 
when we separate the interests from each other and 
disconnect these communities of connection, we have 
in mind a greater community of interest, a vaster 
community of interest, the community of interest 
that binds the virtues of all men together, that man- 
kind, which is broad and catholic enough to take 
under the sweep of its comprehension all sorts and 
conditions of men, and that vision which sees that 
no society is renewed from the top and every society 
is renewed from the bottom. Limit opportunity, 
restrict the field of originative achievement, and you 
have cut out the heart and root of the prosperity of 
the country itself. 

The only thing that can ever make a free country 
is to keep a free and hopeful heart under every 
jacket in it, and then there will be an irrepressible 
vitality, then there will be an irrepressible ideal 
which will enable us to be Democrats of the sort 
that when we die we shall look back and say : "Yes, 
from time to time we differed with each other as to 
what ought to be done, but after all we followed 



JACKSON DAY DINNER 239 

the same vision, after all we worked slowly, stum- 
bling through dark and doubtful passages onward to 
a common purpose and a common ideal." Let us 
apologize to each other that we ever suspected or 
antagonized one another; let us join hands once 
more all around the great circle of community of 
counsel and of interest, which will show us at the 
last to have been indeed the friends of our country 
and the friends of mankind. 



THE ISSUES OF REFORM 

WOODEOW WILSON" 

Address of Woodrow Wilson at the banquet of the Knife 
and Fork Club of Kansas City, Mo., May 5, 191 1. 

There can be no mistaking the fact that we are 
now face to face with political changes which may 
have a very profound efifect upon our political life. 
Those who do not understand the impending change 
are afraid of it. Those who do understand it know 
that it is not a process of revolution, but a process 
of restoration, rather, in which there is as much 
healing as hurt. There are strain and peril, no 
doubt, in every process of change, but the chief peril 
comes from undertaking it in the wrong temper. It 
lies not in the change itself so much as in the 
method of some of those who promote it. It is a 
noteworthy circumstance that in proportion as the 
people of the country come to recognize what it is 
that renders them uneasy and what it is that is 
proposed by way of reformation they lose their fear 
and take on a certain irresistible enthusiasm. 

The American people are naturally a conservative 
people. They do not wish to touch the stable foun- 
dations of their life; they have a reverence for the 
rights of property and the rights of contract which 
is based upon a long experience in a free life, in 

241 



242 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

which they have been at liberty to acquire property 
as they pleased and bind themselves by such con- 
tracts as suited them. No other people have ever 
had such freedom in the establishment of personal 
relationships or property rights. They do not mean 
to lose this freedom or to impair any rights at all, 
but they do feel that a great many things in their 
economic life and in their political action are out of 
gear. They have been cheated by their own politi- 
cal machinery. They have been dominated by the 
very instrumentalities which they themselves cre- 
ated in the field of industrial action. The liberty of 
the individual is hampered and impaired. They 
desire, therefore, not a revolution, not a cutting 
loose from any part of their past, but a readjustment 
of the elements of their life, a reconsideration of 
what it is just to do and equitable to arrange in 
order that they may be indeed free, may indeed 
make their own choices, and live their own life 
undominated, unafraid, unsuspicious, confident that 
they will be served by their public men, and that 
the open processes of their government will bring 
to them justice and timely reform. 

What we are witnessing now is not so much a 
conflict of parties as a contest of ideals, a struggle 
between those who, because they do not understand 
what is happening, blindly hold on to what is and 
those who, because they do see the real questions of 
the present and of the future in a clear, revealing 
light, know that there must be sober change ; know 
that progress, none the less active and determined 



ISSUES OF REFORM 243 

because it is sober and just, is necessary for the 
maintenance of our institutions and the rectification 
of our life. In both the great national parties there 
are men who feel this ardor of progress and of 
reform, and in both parties there are men who hold 
back, who struggle to restrain change, who do not 
understand it or who have reason to fear it 

Both parties are of necessity breaking away from 
the past, whether they will or no, because our life 
has broken away from the past. The life of America 
is not the life it was twenty years ago. It is not 
the life it was ten years ago. We have changed our 
economic conditions from top to bottom, and with 
our economic conditions has changed also the 
organization of our life. The old party formulas 
do not fit the present problems. The old cries of 
the stump sound as if they belonged to a past age, 
which men have almost forgotten. The things 
which used to be put into the party platforms of 
ten years ago would sound antiquated now. You 
will note, moreover, that the political audiences 
which nowadays gather together are not partisan 
audiences. They are made up of all elements and 
come together, not to hear parties denounced or 
praised, but to hear the interests of the nation dis- 
cussed in new terms — the terms of the present 
moment. 

We have so complicated our machinery of gov- 
ernment, we have made it so difficult, so full of 
ambushes and hiding places, so indirect, that in- 
stead of having true representative government we 



2U EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

have a great inextricable jungle of organization 
intervening between the people and the processes 
of their government ; so that by stages, without in- 
tending it, without being aware of it, we have lost 
the purity and directness of representative govern- 
ment. What we must devote ourselves to now is, 
not to upsetting our institutions, but to restoring 
them. 

Undoubtedly we should avoid excitement and 
should silence the demagogue. The man with 
power, but without conscience, could, with an elo- 
quent tongue, if he cared for nothing but his own 
power, put this whole country into a flame, because 
the whole country believes that something is wrong 
and is eager to follow those who profess to be able 
to lead it away from its difficulties. But it is all the 
more necessary that w^e should be careful who are 
our guides. The processes we are engaged in are 
fundamentally conservative processes. If your tree 
is diseased it is no revolution to restore to it the 
purity of its sap, to renew the soil that sustains it, to 
reestablish the conditons of its health. That is a 
process of life, of renewal, of redemption. 

There is no ground for alarm, therefore. We are 
bent upon a perfectly definite program, which is one 
of health and renewal. 

Let us ask ourselves very frankly what it is that 
needs to be corrected. To sum it all up in one sen- 
tence, it is the control of politics and of our life b}^ 
great combinations of wealth. Men sometimes talk 
as if it were wealth we were afraid of, as if we 



ISSUES OF REFORM 245 

were jealous of the accumulation of great fortunes. 
Nothing of the kind is true. America has not the 
slightest jealousy of the legitimate accumulation of 
wealth. Everybody knows that there are hundreds 
and thousands of men of large means and large 
economic power who have come by it all perfectly 
legitimately not only, but in a way that deserves the 
thanks and admiration of the communities they have 
served and developed. But everybody knows also 
that some of the men who control the wealth and 
have built up the industry of the country seek to 
control politics and also to dominate the life of 
common men in a way in which no man should be 
permitted to dominate. 

In the first place, there is the notorious operation 
of the bipartisan political machine : I mean the 
machine which does not represent party principle 
of any kind, but which is willing to enter into any 
combination, with whatever group of persons or of 
politicians, to control the offices of localities and of 
States and of the nation itself in order to maintain 
the power of those who direct it. This machine is 
supplied with its funds by the men who use it in 
order to protect themselves against legislation 
which they do not desire, and in order to obtain the 
legislation which is necessary for the prosecution of 
their purposes. 

The methods of our legislatures make the opera- 
tions of such machines easy and convenient, for very 
little of our legislation is formed and effected by 
open debate upon the floor. Almost all of it is 



246 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

framed in lawyers' offices, discussed in committee 
rooms, passed without debate. Bills that the ma- 
chine and its backers do not desire are smothered 
in committee; measures which they do desire are 
brought out and hurried through their passage. It 
happens again and again that great groups of such 
bills are rushed through in the hurried hours that 
mark the close of the legislative sessions, when 
every one is withheld from vigilance by fatigue, and 
when it is possible to do secret things. 

When we stand in the presence of these things 
and see how complete and sinister their operation 
has been we cry out with no little truth that we no 
longer have representative government. 

Among the remedies proposed in recent years 
have been the initiative and referendum in the field 
of legislation and the recall in the field of adminis- 
tration. These measures are supposed to be charac- 
teristic of the most radical programs, and they are 
supposed to be meant to change the very character 
of our government. They have no such purpose. 
Their intention is to restore, not to destroy, repre- 
sentative government. It must be remembered by 
every candid man who discusses these matters that 
we are contrasting the operation of the initiative 
and the referendum, not with the representative 
government which we possess in theory and which 
we have long persuaded ourselves that we possessed 
in fact, but with the actual state of affairs, with 
legislative processes which are carried on in secret, 
responding to the impulse of subsidized machines, 



ISSUES OF REFORM 247 

and carried through by men whose unhappiness it 
is to realize that they are not their own masters, but 
puppets in a game. 

If we felt that we had genuine representative gov- 
ernment in our State legislatures no one would 
propose the initiative or referendum in America. 
They are being proposed now as a means of bring- 
ing our representatives back to the consciousness 
that what they are bound in duty and in mere policy 
to do is to represent the sovereign people whom 
they profess to serve and not the private interests 
which creep into their counsels by way of machine 
orders and committee conferences. The most ardent 
and successful advocates of the initiative and refer- 
endum regard them as a sobering means of obtain- 
ing genuine representative action on the part of 
legislative bodies. They do not mean to set any- 
thing aside. They mean to restore and reinvigorate, 
rather. 

The recall is a means of administrative control. 
If properly regulated and devised, it is a means of 
restoring to administrative officials what the initia- 
tive and referendum restore to legislators — namely, 
a sense of direct responsibility to the people who 
chose them. 

The recall of judges is another matter. Judges 
are not lawmakers. They are not administrators. 
Their duty is not to determine what the law shall 
be, but to determine what the law is. Their inde- 
pendence, their sense of dignity and of freedom, is 
of the first consequence to the stability of the State. 



248 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

To apply to them the principle of the recall is to set 
up the idea that determinations of what the law is 
must respond to popular impulse and to popular 
judgment. It is sufficient that the people should 
have the power to change the law when they will. 
It is not necessary that they should directly influ- 
ence by threat of recall those who merely interpret 
the law already established. The importance and 
desirability of the recall as a means of administra- 
tive control ought not to be obscured by drawing it 
into this other and very different field. 

The second power we fear is the control of our 
life through the vast privileges of corporations 
which use the wealth of masses of men to sustain 
their enterprise. It is in connection with this danger 
that it is necessary to do some of our clearest and 
frankest thinking. It is a fundamental mistake to 
speak of the privileges of these great corporations 
as if they fell within the class of private right and 
of private property. Those who administer the 
afifairs of great joint stock companies are really 
administering the property of communities, the 
property of the whole mass and miscellany of men 
who have bought the stock or the bonds that sustain 
the enterprise. The stocks and the bonds are con- 
stantly changing hands. There is no fixed partner- 
ship. Moreover, managers of such corporations are 
the trustees of moneys which they themselves never 
accumulated, but which have been drawn together 
out of private savings here, there, and everywhere. 

What is necessary in order to rectify the whole 



ISSUES OF REFORM M9 

mass of business of this kind is that those who con- 
trol it should entirely change their point of view. 
They are trustees, not masters, of private property, 
not only because their power is derived from a 
multitude of men, but also because in its investment 
it affects a multitude of men. It determines the de- 
velopment or decay of communities. It is the means 
of lifting or depressing the life of the whole country. 
They must regard themselves as representatives of 
a public power. There can be no reasonable jealousy 
of public regulation in such matters, because the 
opportunities of all men are affected. Their prop- 
erty is everywhere touched, their savings are every- 
where absorbed, their employment is everywhere de- 
termined, by these great agencies. What we need, 
therefore, is to come to a common view which will 
not bring antagonisms, but accommodations. The 
programs of parties must now be programs of en- 
lightenment and readjustment, not revolutionary, 
but restorative. The processes of change are largely 
processes of thought, but unhappily they cannot be 
effected without becoming political processes also, 
and that is the deep responsibility of public men. 
What we need, therefore, in our politics is an 
instant alignment of all men free and willing to 
think, and to act without fear upon their thought. 
This is just as much a constructive age in politics, 
therefore, as was the great age in which our Federal 
government was set up, and the man who does not 
awake to the opportunity, the man who does not 
sacrifice private and exceptional interests in order 



250 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

to serve the common and public interest, is declin- 
ing to take part in the business of a heroic age. I 
am sorry for the man who is so blind that he does 
not see the opportunity, and I am happy in the con- 
fidence that in this era men of strength and of prin- 
ciple will see their opportunity of immortal service. 
I am not one of those who wish to break connec- 
tions with the past, nor am I one of those who wish 
change for the mere sake of variety. The only men 
who do that are the men who want to forget some- 
thing, the men who filled yesterday with some- 
thing they would rather not recall to-day. Change 
is not interesting unless it is constructive, and it is 
an age of construction that must put fire into the 
blood of any man worthy of the name. 



AFTER-DINNER SPEECH 

STRICKLAND W. GILLILAN 

By Strickland W. Gillilan, before the Ohio Society, Phila- 
delphia, March 30, 1912. 

I shall begin by omitting something. That which 
an after-dinner speaker omits is far more vital than 
what he emits. I shall omit the customary state- 
ment that I am glad to be here. That statement is 
usually made to cover embarrassment. And while 
it might cover an embarrassment of ordinary acre- 
age., it wouldn't make a patch on mine at this mo- 
ment. Besides, I have made that statement so often, 
perfunctorily, only to find out afterwards that I was 
alone in my joy over my presence, that I have elimi- 
nated it permanently from my stock come-packed 
banquet speech. 

Circumstances have taught me caution in regard 
to public utterances. Why, even in this city of 
brotherly affection and other dispelled illusions and 
broken-down traditons, not longer than two months 
ago — on St. Groundhog's day, to be exact — a friend 
of mine arose in the presence of the bread and 
caviar of hospitality and, yielding to a sudden 
and uncontrollable (but typewritten) burst of 
emotion, hurled contumely and other verbal mis- 
siles and debris at the newspapers until he suc- 

251 



^52 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

ceeded in pinning the Indian sign on his own glow- 
ing presidential prospects. And while I have no 
presidential prospects that my physician could 
detect the last time I uneasily requested him to 
stethoscope me, yet one can never tell. 

Forewarned is forearmed, and while four-armed 
is in one sense quadrupedalian (see Webster) it 
does not necessarily mean making an ass of one's 
self. So I shall keep my fingers firmly closed, 
and try not to queer any chances I may be enter- 
taining unawares. I am the one American citizen 
who has never been mentioned for the job. 

Not that I want to be President. That is almost 
as painful and unnatural as being right. But one 
should keep one's li|2;-htnlng rods upright and 
greased and properly insulated. I am intending to 
take the extreme precaution, the year preceding the 
next national attack of presidential epilepsy, to 
write a confidential letter to some friend whom I 
can safely entrust with the delicate — not to say 
sacred — task of violating said confidence at the 
phychological moment, declaring that I positively 
and finally and irrevocably refuse to be a candidate 
for the highest office, unless I can manage in some 
way to sandbag the nomination. That ought to fix 
things. 

The ideal/banquet speech is one that subtracts 
heavily from the sum-total of human knowledge. If 
one says something wise and deep, it is said ob- 
scurely and misunderstood ; or said too clearly, and 
somebody is peeved and begins slinging mud. One 



AFTER-DINNER SPEECH 253 

should say nothing ; say it clearly, firmly, and stand 
by it. Being misunderstood is a terrible thing. 
Being understood by the boxes when we play to the 
galleries is worse. One should sterilize his talk, 
denature it, disinfect it of meaning and thought 
germs. Then if the newspapers credit you with 
having said anything at all, your reputation has 
something on your character. Most banquet 
speakers say nothing, but don't know it. I say 
nothing intentionally. That marks clearly the dif- 
ference between a fool and a humorist. 

Again, there are public speakers who say noth- 
ing in such an impressive way that it sounds as if it 
might assay about $500 to the ton. But when some 
cruel listener smelts it or free mills it or applies the 
cyanide, we are surprised at the poverty of the 
result. Few banqueters carry their stamp mill or 
bottle of cyanide with them, and the bluf¥ goes un- 
called. Nobody remembers what the speaker said. 
They know the tune, but not the words. It is flap- 
doodle de luxe, piffle plenipotentiary, yet it has the 
auricular efifects of oratory. It is grand opera in a 
defunct language. 

There are men who, with distended eyeballs, glis- 
tening fangs, disheveled locks, wilted collar, varicose 
brow veins, vermillion neck, and deep lavender vis- 
age, can beat upon the table until the silver hits 
the ceiling, the dishes break the chandeliers, and 
the salt-cellars are all upset for bad luck, and de- 
clare with a scream of rage through foamy lips 
that the reason the Sahara Desert is in its present 



254 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

deplorable condition is a lack of moisture. They 
say this boldly, recklessly, defiantly, declaring by 
their halidomes that they care not what effect this 
committing of themselves on this burning issue may 
have upon their political prospects. Yet even such 
speeches have been known to move strong men 
(with weak minds) to tears and nominations. 

Such speeches make us mere professional smile- 
smiths emerald with envy. But such speakers, thank 
God, are scarce and becoming scarcer. They are 
the goosebone weather prophets, the leech doctors 
of the spoken word. They have augured so many 
trite auguries that their mouths have become literal 
auger-holes and their speeches bores. 

The time is coming — though it is not here or I 
should be elsewhere to-night — when even at a ban- 
quet a man must say something, shut up, sit down, 
or all three. But by that stage of the millenium, 
banquets themselves will have been relegated to the 
lost limbo of Salem witch pyrography and other 
outworn and barbaric practices. 



APPENDIX I 



SYNOPSIS 

For the use of students in preparing and criticis- 
ing speeches, the following questions should prove 
helpful : 

I. Introduction. 

1. Is it needed to win the good will of the 

audience? 

2. Does it set forth the speaker's theme 

clearly? 

3. Will it arouse interest in what is to follow? 

II. Discussion. 

1. Does it have (a) Unity? 

(b) Logical Order? 

(c) Clearness? 

(d) Force? 

(e) Elegance? 

(f) Appeal? 

2. Is it convincing? 

III. Conclusion. 

1. Is it the natural climax of the speech? or 

2. Is its purpose merely that of leave-taking? 

3. Is it brief? 

4. Is it strong? 

51 Is it appropriate? 
255 



APPENDIX II 



TOPICS FOR SPEECHES 

These topics are selected from lists submitted by 
the heads of departments in Swarthmore College 
for the use of students majoring under them. They 
aim to be suggestive rather than specific, and in 
many cases must be narrowed to a theme suitable 
for a five-minute talk. College topics and questions 
arising in class-room discussions are freely used and 
recitation periods are occasionally given over to the 
discussion of some general topic. 

In all cases the topics chosen must be submitted 
and approved a week in advance of the recitation. 

Economics 

1. City Play-grounds. 

2. City Planning. 

3. Compensation for Industrial Accidents 

4. Causes for Present High Prices. 

5. Work of a Clearing-House. 

6. The Conservation Movement. 

7. The Menace of Immigration. 

8. Socialism. 

9. Need for Public Health Measures. 
10. Scientific Management in Business. 

257 



258 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

11. Corporation Tax (see Journal Pol. Econ., Vol. 

18, pp. 62-473). 

12. Physical Valuation of Railroads (see Journal 

Pol. Econ., Vol 16, p. 189). 

Astronomy 

1. Surface of the Moon. 

2. Corona of the Sun. 

3. Canals of Mars. 

4. Nebulae 

5. The Spectroscope. 

6. Paths of Comets. 

7. The Evening Sky. 

8. Sun Spots. 

Biology and Geology 

1. Mimicry in Animals. 

2. The Coral Reefs. 

3. Immigration of Birds. 

4. Protective Coloration. 

5. Harmful Insects. 

6. The Gipsy Moth. 

7. Factors in Distribution of Animals. 

8. What the Weather-Man Does. 

9. The Sea Bottom. 
10. Factors Affecting: Climate. 



"fe 



Chemistry 

1. Rubber, Its Sources and Treatment. 

2. The Tanning of Leather. 

3. Methods of Preserving Wood. 



APPENDIX II 259 

4. Manufacture of Sugar. 

5. Manufacture of Celluloid. 

6. Properties of Radium. 

French 

1. The Church and State Conflict. 

2. Morocco. 

3. French Colonial Empire. 

4. Modern French Art. 

5. Student Life. 

6. The Code Napoleon. 

7. The Depopulation Question. 

History 

1. Themistocles' Dream for Athens. 

2. Rome and Christianity. 

3. The Crusaders. 

4. Rise of the Italian Cities. 

5. Franklin's Poor Richard Philosophy. 

6. The Winning of the West. 

7. The Fall of Feudalism. 

8. Wolsey in Fact and Fiction. 

9. Oliver Cromwell. 

English 

1. Ibsen's Women. 

2. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth — Comparison 

and Contrast. 

3. My Favorite Novelist. 

4. George Eliot. 

5. Plays of Stephen Phillips. 



260 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

6. Tremendous Trifles. 

7. Symbolism of Maeterlinck. 

8. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal. 

9. Mill's Doctrine of Liberty. 

10. Johnson's Plays. 

11. The Lake Poets. 

Engineering 

1. Oil Engineers. Reference — Cassier's, March, 

1911. 

2. Reclaiming the Everglades. Reference — Cas- 

sier's, March, 1911. 

3. Corrosion of Metals. Reference — Mech. Engi- 

neer, Jan. 20, 1911. 

4. Ventilating Tunnels. Reference — Eng. News, 

March 2, 1911. 

5. World's Debt to Wireless. Reference — Tech. 

World, March, 1911. 

6. Wood Block Paving. Reference — Eng. News, 

April 27, 1911. 

7. Paving and Road-Making. Reference — Prin- 

cipal Eng., Feb., 1911. 

8. Garbage Collection and Disposal. Reference — 

Principal Eng., Feb., 1911. 

9. Power Plant Practice. Reference — Industrial 

Eng., Feb., 1911. 

10. Training of Workmen. Reference — Indus- 

trial Eng., Feb., 1911. 

11. The Automobile Industry. Reference — Auto- 

mobile, Feb. 2, 1911. 



APPENDIX II 361 

12. Rational Road Regulations. Reference — Auto- 

mobile, Feb. 2, 1911. 

13. Aeroplane vs. The Battleship. Reference — Pop. 

Mech., Dec, 1910. 

14. Management of Men. Reference — Wood 

Workers, Jan., 1911. 

15. Warm Cement Floors. Reference — Cement 

Age, Jan., 1911. 



APPENDIX III 



The "Public Speaking Review" has an inter- 
esting and helpful department on Extemporaneous 
Speaking, under the editorship of Professor J. A. 
Winans, Cornell University. From the department 
the following extracts are made : 

EXTEMPORE SPEAKING IN HIGH 
SCHOOLS 

Not long ago the writer was invited by the prin- 
cipal of one of the leading high schools of this State 
to hear a program by that school's students when 
brought together for an hour's assembly. The 
theme was Shakespeare. Those on the program 
were, as we recall, from an advanced English class. 
Some of the subjects they chose to speak upon 
were: 

1. "A Plea for Shylock." 

2. ''Shakespeare's Women." 

3. "The Foremost Man of All the World." 

4. "Lady Macbeth and Portia, a Comparison and 

Contrast!' 

263 



264 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Some of the students musically inclined inter- 
spersed these talks with such songs as "Under the 
Greenwood Tree" and ''Who is Sylvia," the singing 
being prefaced with a few words of explanation. 

The talks were short, averaging from three to 
five minutes in length. They were briefed, not 
memorized ; they were thoughtful and to the point, 
no declamation or Websterian maneuvers being at- 
tempted. The songs, too, were well rendered and 
at the conclusion we felt as if we had been an hour 
with Shakespeake. 

History, too, affords excellent opportunity for the 
student to speak before his schoolmates in such 
assembly, for we are speaking particularly of the 
average high school where no special instructor in 
public speaking is employed. To illustrate, let us 
suppose the class has reached the period of "the Civil 
War" and is brought face to face with "the fore- 
most American." How interesting and helpful some 
such program as the following could be made ap- 
portioned among different members of the class for 
one or more exercises : 

Story of Lincoln's Early Life. 

Lincoln, the Lawyer. 

Lincoln's Part in the Black Hawk War. 

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 

Story of Lincoln's Nomination for the Presidency. 

Lincoln's Integrity. 

Lincoln's Tact. 

Lincoln's Appreciation of Humor, 



APPENDIX III 265 

Lincoln's Prose Style. 

Reading of Tributes, such as Ivowell's and Mark- 
ham's poems. 

The above is meant to be suggestive only, and 
in no sense exhaustive. 

F. E. Brown, 
Drake University. 

NOTES ON PROGRAMS 

In submitting the follov^^ing programs, I have in 
mind sections of ten members, meeting for a two- 
hour period once a week or for two hour periods. 
Each student speaks once a week, and receives two 
hours of university credit. Speeches have a time 
limit, usually of five minutes, rarely more than 
seven. The rest of the time is taken up with im- 
promptu discussions from the floor and criticisms 
by the instructor, and also frequently by the class. 
Speeches are based upon outlines prepared in ad- 
vance and sometimes discussed with the teacher. 

The first program here suggested is a rigid re- 
quirement, each student being called upon to treat 
a topic regardless of his perferences. This has an 
advantage in that one frequently has to do just this 
in practical work. I frequently say to a complain- 
ing student, "Yes, it is an unpromising subject; but 
there is a speech in there somewhere and it is for 
you to get it out." But in assigning rigid programs, 
at least early in the year, I choose a familiar topic, 
with rather broad themes, such as follows : 



266 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

Intercollegiate Athletics 

Chairman's address (by a student), Rise of inter- 
collegiate athletics ; Influence of athletics on college 
life; Should athletes be favored in the classroom? 
What is professionalism in college athletics? Are 
we free from professionalism in this college? Should 
''summer baseball" be permitted? Do athletics cost 
too much? Is the ''new" football an advance? If 
a member of our team were killed next Saturday, 
should the schedule be abandoned? Could athletics 
be maintained without intercollegiate games? 

The above program presents too many broad 
issues; but it will furnish a class of beginners an 
abundance of material, and consisting largely of live 
issues on familiar themes will sweep away their dif- 
fidence and hesitation. A lively "after-meeting" 
may be anticipated. 

If greater liberty is desired, these topics may be 
posted for selection. Additional topics will readily 
occur to all ; as, Influence of athletics on students 
taking part, Can a student be both athlete and 
scholar? Why is football the great student game? 
Athletics and the reputation of the university, pro- 
fessional coaches, The season-ticket system. The tax 
system of support, Is our method of controlling 
athletics at democratic enough? 

A variation of this method which I have found 
works well is to read out a list of possible topics 
with or without brief suggestion of treatment, and 
let each member express his preference for one of 



APPENDIX III 367 

these or for another which occurs to him. Care 
must be taken, of course, to reject poor topics and 
to preserve a degree of unity for the program. 

At times I give still larger freedom and assign 

such a topic as, One reason why should be 

elected. The requirement is simply to choose a 
definite point and present it clearly and effectively. 
I have used these in the same way: My point of 
view on the liquor problem (this may be treated 
either as a personal or as a social and political ques- 
tion) ; A single phase of Lincoln's character de- 
scribed and illustrated. 

These are but fragmentary suggestions. One of 
the most important considerations in arranging the 
exercises of a term is to secure progressiveness, 
adaptation, and development of the various forms 
of discourse. I hope we may have some valuable dis- 
cussion along these lines. 

It is not especially difficult to frame programs 
upon campus subjects, but since it is interesting 
and frequently helpful to learn what others do I 
will submit the following, which I have tested with 
many sections : 

Cheating in Examinations 

Chairman's address : Prevalence of cheating in 
this University. 

The moral question involved. [It may be well to 
assign this to two members, as many fall short of 
the clear analysis and exposition demanded.] 



268 EXTEMPORANEOUS SPEAKING 

May one ever conscientiously help another in 
examination? 

The proctor system attacked. 

The proctor system defended. 

The honor system in the South. 

The honor system in Princeton. 

The system of the College of Civil Engineering 
advocated. 

The system of the College of Law advocated. 

Is an honor system feasible in the College of Arts 
and Sciences, where election is nearly free, class 
lines are broken down and public opinion is weak? 

Present day students and the sense of honor. 

It may be well to assign sub-divisions of some of 
these topics : as. Does the presence of a proctor 
justify cheating? Is the analogy between proctor 
and policeman valid? Is the fact that the dishonor- 
able student may take advantage of an honor system 
a substantial objection? 

J. A. WiNANS. 



Intercollegiate Debates I 

Edited by Paul M. Pearson 

The twenty-five debates in the form of briefs and reports are given 
as actually discussed by prominent students at Harvard, Princeton, 
Chicago, etc. The substance of each debate is followed by a de- 
tailed list of the references consulted by each group of speakers. 
A college-bred substantialness gives the book weight with mature 
students. Its simplicity and pointedness make it distinctly helpful 
to the boy or girl of High School age. 

Price per copy $1. 50 

Intercollegiate Debates II 

Edited by E, R. Nichols 

This is a companion volume to the Pearson collection. In the 
plan of presenting points of main speeches as well as rebuttals in the 
order recognised as best to-day it is like Volume I. In the debate 
material it is distinctly individual. Six of the discussions elaborate 
questions treated In the earlier volume. Two-thirds of the book is 
devoted to questions that have only recently developed their clutch- 
ing importance. 

Price per copy $2.00 

Pros and Cons 

Edited by A. H. Craig 

Primarily It Is a book of thirty debates employing all arguments 
on both sides of questions political and social. The organization of so- 
cieties is explained simply and fully, 250 selected topics for discussion 
and model addresses for commencements are here. In the abun- 
dance and general helpfulness of its data it is first of Its class. 
Price per copy $1.50 

The Speaker 

Edited by Paul M. Pearson 

**The Speaker" is a quarterly periodical of such readings, 
plays, orations and debates as are attracting the attention of college 
professors and forensic leaders from month to month. The past issues 
of "The Speaker" In which briefs of debates and bibliographies 
appear are Nos. 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 23, 24, 27. 
All kept In stock. 

Price per copy : paper, 40c. ; cloth, 60c. 
One year's subscription (4 numbers) $1.50 



HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers 
New York Philadelphia 



Questions for Debate 

ABANDONMENT OF PROTECTIVE TARIFF 

Sources of data: Pros and Cons, Ch. 15; Intercollegiate De- 
bates, Vol. I, Ch. 5; Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 3; 
The Speaker, No. 15. 

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 13. 

ARMED INTERVENTION FOR THE COLLECTION OF 
DEBTS 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 8. 

CENTRAL BANK 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 14 j The 
Speaker, No. 27. 

COMMISSION SYSTEM OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol, I, Ch. 24; 
Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 8; The Speaker, No. 12. 

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 5; The 
Speaker, No. 23. 

THE DIRECT PRIMARY 

Sources of data: Pros and Cons, Ch. 23; Intercollegiate De- 
bates, Vol. II, Ch. 9; The Speaker, No. 21. 

EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY FOR ACCIDENTS 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 11. 

FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 2; The 
Speaker, No. 8. 

FEDERAL CHARTER FOR INTERSTATE BUSINESS 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 2; The 
Speaker, No. 12. 

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 13. 

FREE RAV^ MATERIAL 

Source of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 4. 

Complete contents of all debate books sent upon request 



Questions for Debate 

GOVERNMENT BY INJUNCTION 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 6; The 
Speaker, No. 13. 

GREEK LETTER FRATERNITIES 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 27. 

THE INCOME TAX 

Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. I5 The 
Speaker, No. 11; The Speaker, No. 19. 

INHERITANCE TAX 

Sources of data : Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 7; The 
Speaker, No. 8. 

THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM 

Sources of data: Pros and Cons; Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. 
I, Ch. 3; Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 6; The 
Speaker, No. 11; The Speaker, No. 24. 

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 27. 

MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP 

Sources of data: Pros and Cons, Ch. 28; The Speaker, No, 8; 
The Speaker, No. 27. 

THE OPEN SHOP 

Somxes of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 14; In- 
tercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 11; The Speaker, No. 15. 

PRESIDENTIAL VS. PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT 
. Sources of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. I, Ch. 19; In- 
tercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 12; The Speaker, No. 14. 

RAILROAD POOLING 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 19. 

THE RECALL OF JUDGES 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 27. 

RECIPROCITY WITH CANADA 

Source of data: The Speaker, No. 19. 

THE SHORT BALLOT 

Source of data: Intercollegiate Debates, Vol. II, Ch. 7. 

Complete contents of all debate books sent upon request 



OCT 21 1912 



